THE  RELIGION  OF  A 
SENSIBLE  AMERICAN 


THE    RELIGION    OF   A 
SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 

:'  ,    •          ^          111, 

BY  DAVID  STARR  JORDAN 


"  Believe  and  venture;  as  for 
pledges,  the  gods  give  none  " 


YONKERS-ON-HUDSON,  NEW  YORK 

WORLD  BOOK  COMPANY 

1922 


BOOKS  BY 
DAVID    STARR    JORDAN 


DEMOCRACY  AND  WORLD  RELATIONS 

WAR  AND  THE  BREED 

THE  RELIGION  OP  A  SENSIBLE  AMERICAN 

THE  STORY  OF  A  GOOD  WOMAN 

ULRICH  VON  HUTTEN 

THE  STCRT  or  MATKA 

THE  DAYS  OF  A  MAN  (Autobiography} 

In  2  volumes.    In  press 

WORLD   BOOK   COMPANY 

YONKERS-ON-HUDSON,    NEW   YORK 


Copyright,  1909,  by  American  Unitarian  Association 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF 
WILBUR  WILSON  THOBURN 

PROFESSOR  OF  BIONOMICS 

IN 

STANFORD  UNIVERSITY 
BORN  AT  SINCLAIRSVILLE,  OHIO 

JUNE  10,  1859 

DIED  AT  PALO  ALTO,  CALIFORNIA 
JANUARY  6,  1899 


5426 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

HE  writer  of  this  little  book  was 
asked  by  the  Editor  of  "The  Hib- 
bert  Journal"  to  write  an  article 
on  "the  religion  of  a  sensible 
American,"  to  be  the  second  of 
a  series  covering  the  religious  experiences  of 
"  sensible  "  men  of  different  nations,  the  first 
being  "  the  religion  of  a  sensible  Scotsman." 
The  title  assigned  seemed  to  shut  out  the 
possibility  of  a  personal  confession  of  faith, 
even  were  such  a  confession  acceptable.  For 
that  reason  and  for  other  reasons  the  writer 
chose  to  set  forth  the  religious  belief  and 
work  of  a  friend,  no  longer  living;  one  who 
could  stand  without  question  as  a  sensible 
man,  and  one  whose  thought  and  whose  life 
were  typical  of  the  best  which  we  may  call 
American. 

In  reprinting  this  article  as  a  booklet  it  has 
been  considerably  extended  in  length  by  the 
inclusion  of  some  matters  omitted  from  the 
article  as  printed  in  "The  Hibbert  Journal." 

D.  s.  J. 


UT  of  your  lives 
take  the  love 
and  sympathy, 
the  purity,  the 
truth,  the  ten- 
der things,  and  all  that 
grows  into  the  larger  life. 
Put  these  on  the  cold  altar 
of  your  heart.  Cut  out 
those  lonely  words,  '  To  an 
unknown  God/  and  write 
'Our  Father.'  Then  bow 
before  him.  This  is  your 
God.  He  will  not  with- 
hold any  good  thing  from 
you  if  you  walk  uprightly." 


THE  RELIGION 

OF  A 

SENSIBLE  AMERICAN 


N  these  pages  I  have  tried  to  set 
forth  the  religion  of  a  wise  man, 
forceful  and  helpful,  whose  re- 
ligion justified  itself  by  swaying 
the  lives  of  many  young  men  and 
women  toward  noble  thoughts  and  sturdy 
righteousness. 

My  friend  was  a  man  whose  religion! 
appeared  in  deeds  rather  than  in  words,  morel 
in  life  than  in  precept.  But  the  power  or 
speech  was  his  and  in  good  measure,  and  his 
words  were  often  in  demand  at  gatherings  of 
students.  After  his  untimely  death,  various 
memoranda  of  his  notes  and  talks  to  young 
people  were  saved  and  brought  together  by 
his  associates.  For  these  fragments,  privately 
printed  and  nowhere  for  sale,  we  chose  a  title 
which  tells  the  whole  of  his  religion  in  four 
clear  words,  "  In  Terms  of  Life/'  From  these 
notes  and  from  my  own  recollections  I  venture 
to  reconstruct  the  religion  of  a  "sensible 
American,"  a  religion  which,  however  incom- 
plete, is  not  far  from  the  ideal  toward  which 


THE  RELIGION   OF  A 


the  average  sensible  American  of  to-day  is 
clearly  tending. 

In  the  use  of  the  word  "  American,"  a  term 
not  of  my  own  choosing,  I  do  not  wish  to 
claim  any  special  wisdom  for  the  people  of 
my  own  nation,  or  that  their  attitude  toward 
religion  is  essentially  different  from  that  of 
men  of  other  races.  All  people  give  their 
religious  aspirations  something  of  the  color  of 
their  own  individuality.  An  American  is  an 
Englishman  who  has  had  some  additional 
experiences,  whose  ancestry  has  been  judged 
and  tested  by  influences  other  than  those  of 
the  home  country.  In  particular  he  has  found 
himself  in  a  motor  environment,  in  a  land  of 
action,  where  no  man  can  rest  in  the  protection 
of  privilege,  and  where  the  tradition  of  cen- 
turies counts  for  next  to  nothing.  As  a  con- 
sequence, the  American  knows  little  and  cares 
less  for  those  things  not  inherently  sacred, 
but  which  have  become  so  in  Europe  through 
the  accumulated  tradition  of  religious  associa- 
tion. He  knows  nothing  of  the  ecclesiastical 
calendar.  Thanksgiving,  which  is  his  own 
innovation,  Christmas,  and  Easter  constitute 
the  only  saints'  days  he  remembers.  He  cares 
little  for  how  things  are  done,  his  interest 
being  in  the  fact  that  they  are  done.  He  is 

[12] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


likely  to  get  at  the  heart  of  things  in  religion 
as  in  other  matters,  and  may  very  likely  offend 
good  taste  in  doing  so.  Later  he  will  be  at 
leisure  to  consider  the  refinements  of  religious 
aspiration.  At  present  he  is  prone  to  neglect 
them,  and  in  the  degree  that  religion  appears 
to  be  bound  up  in  niceties  of  expression,  the 
average  American  is  likely  to  be  indifferent 
to  it  as  no  concern  of  his. 

On  the  positive  side  the  sensible  American 
is  sure  that  this  is  God's  world,  none  other 
more  so.  "  The  God  of  things  as  they  are  " 
has  his  throne  within  the  confines  of  his  cre- 
ation and  no  condition  of  life  and  no  place 
or  time  can  lie  outside  his  presence.  But 
whatever  the  extent  of  space  and  time,  two 
things  are  real  with  us  — Here  and  Now. 
This  is  our  day,  and  here  is  the  spot  where 
our  life  must  be  made  to  count.  In  history 
other  men  have  had  their  other  days,  but 
yesterday  is  already  numbered  with  the  rest 
of  man's  "seven  thousand  years,"  or  his 
seventy  million,  it  may  be  —  who  shall  say? 
Yesterday  has  passed  away  and  is  as  far  be- 
yond our  reach  as  the  days  of  Julius  Caesar. 
To-morrow  is  still  unborn  and  may  never 
belong  to  us.  We  have  to-day,  and  no  day 
was  ever  so  inspiring,  so  glorious,  so  worship- 

[13] 


THE  RELIGION   OF  A 


ful.  For  this  is  our  time  to  act,  the  hour  for 
us  to  play  our  part.  Let  the  part  be  large  or 
small,  it  is  a  part  of  action.  It  is  for  us  to  do 
our  best,  not  our  second  best;  to  do  it  with 
good  cheer  and  with  perfect  confidence  that  in 
God's  economy  no  good  life  is  ever  wasted. 
"God's  errands  never  fail."  It  is  not  for  us  to 
cringe  or  whine,  nor  need  we  cry  for  any  spe- 
cial recompense  for  days  of  doubt  or  despair 
or  discomfort.  Our  part  is  a  part  of  love  and 
helpfulness  of  love  as  translated  into  terms  of 
helping  our  neighbor. 

Lord,  here  am  I,  my  three  score  years  and  ten 
All  counted  to  the  full.    I  have  fought  thy  fight, 
Crossed  thy  dark  valleys,  scaled  thy  rock's  harsh  height, 
Borne  all  the  burdens  thou  dost  lay  on  men 
With  hand  unsparing,  three  score  years  and  ten. 
Before  thee  now,  I  make  my  claim,  O  Lord, 
What  shall  I  pray  thee  as  a  meet  reward  ? 

I  ask  for  nothing !    Let  the  balance  fall ! 

All  that  I  am  or  know  or  may  confess 

But  swells  the  weight  of  mine  indebtedness. 

Burden  and  sorrow  are  transfigured  all ; 

Thy  hand's  rude  buffet  turns  to  a  caress ; 

For  Love,  with  all  the  rest,  Thou  gavest  me  here, 

And  Love  is  Heaven's  very  atmosphere. 

Lo,  I  have  dwelt  with  Thee,  Lord ;  let  me  die : 

I  could  no  more,  through  all  eternity. 

The  positive  phase  of  this  religion  is  the 
feeling  of  being  at  home  in  God's  universe. 

[14] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


I 


This  is  no  alien  land.  Our  fathers  were  born 
here,  and  our  fathers'  fathers,  and  the  same 
Hand  has  led  them  on  from  the  primordial 
sandstones  of  Quebec  to  the  foundations  of 
our  own  republic.  The  pledge  of  the  future 
is  adequate.  We  are  links  in  an  eternal  chain, 
and  the  little  part  assigned  to  us  is  the  con- 
quest of  Here  and  Now.  Wisdom,  aTT  frav 
often  said,  is  knowing  what  one  ought  to  do 
next;  virtue  is  doing  it;  and  religion  is  the 
feeling  or  attitude  which  braces  us  up  to  our 
duty  when  it  is  easier  to  stand  aside  or  to  let 
the  part  assigned  to  us  slip  by  through  default.  / 
This  may  not  matter  in  the  long  run  —  the 
ages  are  patient  and  the  evasion  of  man  is  no 
novelty ;  but  it  means  everything  in  the  make- 
up of  our  own  conduct  of  life,  and  that  is  the 
whole  thing  with  us.  "  Confessedly/'  says 
Charles  Ferguson,  "this  is  a  jangling  world  for 
one  who  is  bent  on  quick  pleasures;  there 
may  be  rhythm  and  music  in  it  for  a  lover 
who  can  wait." 

In  the  notes  of  my  friend  I  find  these  words : 
"  It  is  a  great  event  in  a  boy's  life  when  he 
can  say,  'I  and  my  father  are  one/  It  is 
greater  when  a  man  finds  that  he  can  keep 
step  with  God ;  that  he  wants  to  do,  and  can 
do,  the  things  that  God  is  doing. 

[15] 


THE   RELIGION    OF   A 


"  When  men  search  with  so  much  heartache 
for  faith  in  order  that  they  may  believe,  they 
think  they  are  groping  in  the  darkness  to  find 
God.  They  think  if  they  can  only  find  him, 
they  will  get  faith  from  him.  It  is  not  faith 
in  God  that  they  need,  but  faith  in  themselves. 
God  will  do  his  part.  He  will  run  the  uni- 
verse without  falter.  It  is  self-confidence  that 
men  need,  belief  that  they  can  do  their  part. 
NcTmari  ever  falls  away  from  God  and  loses 
confidence  in  him  until  he  has  first  warped 
and  twisted  his  life  by  falling  away  from  him- 
self. Faith  does  not  depend  upon  anything 
God  does  or  may  do  in  answer  to  our  prayers, 
but  upon  us  —  upon  our  training,  our  experi- 
ence, our  knowledge. 

"Faith  in  self  — faith  that  links  God  and 
man  and  is  the  key  to  all  the  riches  of  heaven 
—  is  the  result  of  experience  and  is  to  be  won, 
like  any  other  power,  by  persistent  and  con- 
stant exercise.  You,  and  you  alone,  hold 
the  key  to  your  heaven."  "  There  is,"  says 
Ferguson,  "no  blackboard  demonstration  that 
God  is  good.  You  must  risk  it  or  die  a 
coward." 

My  friend  used  the  word  "God"  freely  in  his 
talks  to  young  men  and  women.  With  him 
God  was  not  a  mere  abstraction,  but  a  very 

[16] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


potent  element  in  the  trend  of  events,  the 
great  First  Cause  and  the  Last  Cause  of  things 
as  they  are.  His  God  was  not  anthropomorphic, 
not  "  made  in  the  image  of  men,"  nor  did  he 
conceive  his  attributes  in  such  fashion  as  to 
justify  Haeckel's  sneer  at  worship  of  "  a  gase- 
ous vertebrate."  It  is  only  in  mythology  and 
poetry  that  God  appears  as  angry,  jealous, 
benevolent,  a  judge,  a  tyrant,  a  king,  a  huge 
hoary-bearded  giant.  The  God  of  my  friend's 
worship  is  an  immanent  god,  "  numen  adest," 
in  the  fine  words  of  Linnaeus.1  His  will  is 
that  which  is  permanent  in  time  and  space, 
in  a  universe  in  which,  using  Huxley's  words, 
"  nothing  endures  save  the  flow  of  energy  and 
the  rational  intelligence  that  pervades  it."  His 
is  that  rush  of  force;  his  is  that  rational 
intelligence.  It  is  through  him  that  right  and 
justice  are  eternal. 

The  sensible  American  finds  that  good  mea 
through  the  ages  have  cherished  an  ideal  of 
love  and  service,  wavering  at  the  best  and 
often  obscured  by  war  and  controversy,  but 
tending  toward  the  end  of  serving  God 

1  It  is  said  that  on  the  doors  of  Linnaeus'  home  at  Hammarby, 
near  Upsala,  were  these  words :  "  Innocue  vivito ;  numen  adest." 
"Live  blameless;  God  is  here."  "This,"  said  Linnaeus,  "is  the 
wisdom  of  my  life." 

[17] 


THE   RELIGION    OF   A 


through  building  up  stronger,  purer,  happier 
units  of  humanity.  He  finds  that  this  ideal 
and  many  others  of  like  import,  the  dream  of 
"lives  made  beautiful  and  sweet  by  self- 
devotion  and  by  self-restraint,"  had  their  origin, 
or  at  least  their  first  connected  promulgation, 
in  the  words  of  Jesus  the  Jew.  The  records 
show  that  this  young  man,  who  "spake  as 
never  man  spake,"  was  born  at  Bethlehem 
in  Judaea,  nearly  twenty  centuries  ago ;  that  he 
taught  among  men  and  ministered  unto  men 
for  a  few  years  with  a  few  disciples,  and  that 
he  came  to  a  cruel  death.  He  finds  that  the 
teachings  of  Jesus  are  reported  in  fragments 
only,  in  a  tongue  not  his  own,  and  with  many 
variants  and  some  additions,  but  with  their 
essential  spirit  strong  and  clear  in  every  ver- 
sion of  his  language. 

In  reconstructing  the  life  of  Jesus, "  we  find," 
says  Charles  F.  Dole,  "  a  very  remarkable  torso, 
or  at  least  the  fragments  of  a  statue.  But  a 
torso  is  definite  and  complete  as  far  as  it  goes. 
Fragments  and  pieces  are  firm  in  your  hands. 
You  can  match  them  together.  You  can  re- 
construct a  torso.  The  fragments  in  our  case 
crumble.  They  are  mixed  with  other  frag- 
ments. If  they  combine,  they  never  form  one 
and  the  same  combination.  You  have  not 

[18] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


one  Jesus,  but  two  or  more  with  different 
elements." 

As  to  what  men  say  of  Jesus,  "  their  descrip- 
tions and  paintings  and  panegyrics  almost  never 
appear  like  the  genuine  work  of  even  tolerable 
copyists.  There  are  second-hand  artists  who 
have  at  least  seen  original  work.  But  the 
conventional  descriptions  of  Jesus  not  only 
vary,  they  seem  never  to  have  been  near  an 
original.  The  more  complete  and  entertaining 
they  are,  the  nearer  they  come  to  be  pure 
creations  of  the  author's  mind.  They  are 
German  or  Italian  or  English  or  American 
pictures,  and  generally  somewhat  modern  - 
they  are  not  Hebrew  —  whereas  Jesus  was  a 
Jew  of  twenty  centuries  ago." 

But  the  sensible  American  finds  that  these 
words,  however  fragmentary  and  at  times 
even  contradictory,  nevertheless  bear  their  own 
witness.  All  the  wisdom  of  the  wise  ages  as 
to  the  conduct  of  life  cannot  add  much  to  them. 
All  the  history  of  human  civilization  is  per- 
meated with  his  doctrines.  Even  were  every  syl- 
lable he  has  spoken  lost  to-day,  his  teachings 
could  be  restored  and  retraced  in  the  history 
of  civilization ;  for  they  rise  above  everything 
else  in  history ;  above  the  pomp  and  splendor 
of  empire,  the  hideous  orgies  of  holy  war,  the 

[19] 


THE  RELIGION   OF  A 


ferocity  of  religious  persecution,  and  the 
bitterness  of  theological  disputation. 

The  tested  and  co-ordinated  results  of  human 
experience,  which  we  call  science  and  by 
which  all  theory  must  be  judged,  emphasize 
and  verify  these  teachings  in  their  relation  to 
human  conduct.  As  religion  is  the  impulse 
to  strive  for  the  highest  and  best  in  human 
conduct,  and  as  science  furnishes  our  human 
test  of  what  is  best  and  highest,  my  friend 
finds  no  conflict  between  religion  and  science. 
If  this  is  the  age  of  science,  it  is  largely  so 
because  it  is  the  age  of  religion  and  in  like 
degree.  Between  new  ideas  and  preconceived 
ideas,  between  discovery  and  tradition,  there 
is  in  the  nature  of  things  a  constant  struggle. 
This  struggle  must  involve  each  individual 
man  and  each  phase  of  human  society.  But 
in  this  struggle  the  truth  is  sure  to  survive  at 
last,  and  the  inevitable  clash  has  in  it  no  occa- 
sion for  despair.  Meanwhile  the  wisdom  of 
the  race  is  never  in  conflict  with  the  worthiest 
ideals,  the  most  repaying  experiences  in  the 
conduct  of  life. 

And  he  finds  that  the  words  of  Jesus  suffer 
nothing  under  any  analysis  he  can  give  them. 
They  have  always  been  true,  and  they  are  part 
of  the  framework  of  creation,  of  which  the 

[20] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


conduct  of  human  life  is  the  crowning  feature, 
the  most  lofty,  and  at  the  same  time  the  most 
imperfect,  and  for  the  same  exalted  reason. 
These  words  are  true,  he  will  say,  not  be- 
cause Jesus  said  them.  Jesus  said  them  be- 
cause they  were  true.  And  in  this  sense, 
his  words,  "  I  and  my  Father  are  one,"  have 
a  definite  and  human  meaning  —  a  meaning 
not  concerned  with  any  mystery  of  the  priest. 
In  the  same  sense,  all  right  thinking  and  all 
right  acting  are  one  —  one  with  the  Creator 
of  man  and  with  his  purposes.  It  did  not 
matter  to  my  friend  what  other  forms  of  one- 
ness might  exist  so  long  as  there  was  room 
for  this  divine  and  human  unity  in  the  life  of 
every  man. 

For  reasons  like  these  my  friend  was  not 
disposed  to  measure  the  relation  to  Divinity 
on  the  part  of  the  Prophet  of  Nazareth. 
Whether  Jesus  be  one  with  God,  or  one  with 
man,  or  both,  is,  after  all,  not  a  vital  question. 
This  he  may  leave  the  theologian  to  settle,  if 
he  can,  through  tradition,  text,  or  syllogism. 
It  is  enough  for  the  sensible  American  to  be- 
lieve in  the  unity  of  the  word  and  the  spirit. 
The  word  is  divine  because  it  is  true,  and  one 
name  of  Divinity  is  the  Perfect  Truth.  In  the 
religion  of  Jesus  the  end  of  truth  is  service, 

[21] 


THE   RELIGION    OF   A 


and  religion  finds  its  function  and  justification 
in  the  conduct  of  life. 

The  sensible  American  notes  a  contrast  be- 
tween the  subjects  which  aroused  the  interest 
of  Jesus,  as  recorded  by  his  disciples,  and  the 
subjects  which  have  filled  the  history  of  the 
Christian  Church.  It  is  the  contrast  between 
the  divine  and  the  human  in  man's  affairs. 
The  simple  life  of  the  teacher  who  had  no 
place  to  lay  his  head  stands  in  contrast  with 
the  complex  struggles  of  those  who  in  his 
name  established  a  holy  empire.  "  In  this 
sign  conquer"  was  the  symbol  of  domina- 
tion. It  was  in  every  respect  the  antithesis 
of  the  words  of  Jesus,  as  the  life  of  Constan- 
tine,  maker  of  this  phrase,  stood  at  the  oppo- 
site pole  from  the  life  of  him  who  suffered 
under  Pontius  Pilate. 

The  historic  Church  has  interested  itself  in 
war  and  conquest,  in  pomp  and  pageantry, 
in  dominion  over  men  and  lands,  in  temporal 
rulership  as  well  as  spiritual  control.  None 
of  these  matters  entered  into  the  ambitions  of 
Jesus.  To  him  these  were  far-away  affairs, 
evils  to  be  endured,  it  may  be,  as  the  tribute 
money  was  rendered  unto  Caesar,  but  form- 
ing no  part  of  the  ideals  of  rational  religious 
life. 

[22] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


The  historic  Church  has,  almost  from  the 
first,  been  entangled  in  a  warfare  of  creeds. 
The  creed  as  we  know  it  to-day  is  a  historic 
battle-cry  of  a  contending  host.  It  belongs  to 
the  war  of  words  which  succeeded  the  clash 
of  spears  and  lances.  To  the  sensible  American 
the  creeds  are  mostly  harmless.  They  will  not 
injure  us  if  we  do  not  read  them.  Without 
their  historic  background  we  can  hardly  un- 
derstand them.  They  should  be  left  in  this 
background.  It  is  not  well  to  revise  them  too 
often.  Their  galvanized  life  may  work  injury 
to  our  spirits.  "  Creeds  are  not  true,"  Mr.  G.  L 
Dickinson  tells  us;  "they  are  merely  neces- 
sary/' "Since  I  read  the  Apostles'  Creed,"~^ 
says  Mr.  Dooley,  "it  seems  less  convincing 
than  when  I  heard  it  and  did  not  understand 
it."  As  Dr.  Holmes  once  said,  "  Old  errors  do 
not  die  because  they  are  refuted ;  they  fade 
out  because  they  are  neglected/'  Their  place 
is  in  psychology  and  history,  not  in  the  religion 
of  Jesus.  To  believe  is*surely  adequate.  We 
need  not  go  into  particulars.  To  believe  is  to 
have  faith  in  the  universe,  in  man,  and  in  all 
the  forces  inside  or  outside  ourselves  which 
shall  make  for  righteousness.  "  Believe  and 
venture."  This  is  our  part.  "  As  for  pledges, 
the  gods  give  none/', 

[23] 


THE  RELIGION   OF  A 


As  his  religion  is  not  regulated  by  intellec- 
tual assent  to  any  proposition  in  metaphysics, 
spiritual  or  biographical,  the  average  sensible 
American  is  not  alarmed  over  the  results  of 
the  Higher  Criticism.  Enough  that  is  genuine 
and  beyond  question  goes  back  to  the  teach- 
ings of  Jesus.  That  devout  enthusiasts  have 
interpolated  here  and  there  an  illustration,  a 
bit  of  philosophy,  or  a  bit  of  imagination,  or 
that  chapter  or  epistle  may  have  been  attributed 
to  the  wrong  authority  does  not  disturb  his 
spiritual  consciousness.  These  matters  are  in- 
teresting from  the  scientific  side.  They  are 
inspiring  to  students  of  records  and  manu- 
scripts, but  they  do  not  touch  bottom  in  their 
relation  to  religion.  Neither  is  he  concerned 
because  wine  is  not  turned  into  water  in  our 
day,  nor  in  any  other  day,  not  even  by  the  faith 
that  moves  mountains.  The  old  story  of  Cana 
may  not  be  true.  It  may  be  poetry,  or  para- 
ble, or  error  of  record,  or  even  pure  falsehood. 
That  he  reads  this  tale  does  not  help  his  faith, 
but  it  does  not  disturb  it.  In  the  face  of  the 
greatest  marvel  in  human  history,  the  teach- 
ings of  him  who  spake  as  never  man  spake, 
of  him  who  will  draw  all  men  to  him,  he  will 
leave  to  each  expert  in  Oriental  imagery  such 
theory  of  physical  miracle  as  may  seem  to  him 

[24] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


best.  He  can  understand  that  the  parables  and 
fancies  of  Hebrew  poets,  like  those  of  English 
poets,  interpret  spiritual  rather  than  literal  or 
historical  fact.  He  knows  the  distressing  in- 
adequacy of  any  poem  when  all  its  expressions 
are  literally  interpreted.  Therefore  he  is  not 
distressed  over  the  narrowness  of  the  whale's 
gullet,  nor  over  the  maladjustment  of  the  days 
of  creation,  nor  the  fact  that  the  prayers  of 
good  men  will  not  wring  rain  from  a  steel  blue 
Australian  sky.  Neither  is  his  faith  impaired 
by  the  certainty  that  creation  was  a  process 
very  different  from  that  which  our  fathers  im- 
agined—  even  the  creation  of  man.  He  rec- 
ognizes clearly  enough  that  the  ancestry  of 
man  runs  close  to  that  of  the  animals  which 
are  likest  him,  and  in  whose  image,  anatomi- 
cally, he  is  made.  He  rejoices,  rather,  that  the 
world  is  far  older  and  the  universe  far  broader 
than  his  fathers  had  thought;  that  "Time  is 
as  long  as  space  is  wide."  Infinite  detail  of 
preparation,  even  in  the'processes  of  creation, 
seems  to  guarantee  ineffable  achievement.  The 
heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God  only  the  more 
insistently,  now  he  has  learned  what  his  fathers 
could  not  know,  —  how  vast  the  range  of  all 
these  heavens  must  be.  As  he  who  believes 
"  by  the  grace  of  Jupiter,  the  highest  god,  may 

[25] 


THE   RELIGION   OF   A 


despise  all  the  lesser  gods  in  silence,"  so  he 
whose  spirit  is  filled  with  the  greater  faith 
must  turn  away  from  all  the  lesser  mysteries 
and  marvels. 

As  with  the  phases  of  belief,  so  with  the 
symbolism  in  which  they  find  expression. 
"Do  this  in  memory  of  me"  was  a  simple 
and  natural  ceremony  so  long  as  it  bore  wit- 
ness to  the  living  reality  in  the  hearts  of  men. 
But  when  the  Eucharist  became  the  signal  of 
wordy  or  even  bloody  warfare,  Homoiousian 
versus  Homoousian,  it  is  no  longer  a  pledge 
of  his  memory.  It  is  a  weapon  in  the  hands 
of  ambition.  Though  among  simple  folk  it 
holds  its  primal  associations,  its  meaning  is 
forgotten  in  the  seats  of  the  mighty.  The 
baptism  in  the  Jordan  had  a  significance  with 
a  clear  river  in  a  dusty  land  that  may  be  lost 
in  costly  covered  fonts  or  cruelly  burlesqued 
by  holes  cut  through  the  winter  ice.  The 
Sabbath  exists  for  man,  not  man  for  the  Sab- 
bath. It  is  neither  in  this  mountain  nor  in 
Jerusalem  that  men  are  to  worship.  They  are 
.p.  to  worship  the  Lord  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 

It  is  clear  to  the  sensible  American  that  the 
religion  of  Jesus  has  no  necessary  connection 
with  church  or  state.  A  church  or  state  may 
be  permeated  with  its  spirit,  but  religion  is  not 

[26] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


dependent  on  organization^  It  has  no  neces- 
sary connection  with  creed  or  ceremony,  with 
litany  or  liturgy,  with  priest  or  preacher,  with 
symbol  or  miracle,  with  sacrament  or  baptism, 
with  pious  action  or  with  pious  refraining. 
These  have  been  associates  of  religion :  some- 
times religion  has  been  helped  by  them ;  but 
the  reality  lies  with  the  individual  man,  his 
relation  to  his  fellows  and  to  his  individual 
duty. 

My  friend  tells  this  parable : 

"  In  the  old  days  a  father  built  a  home  for 
his  family.  It  was  complete  in  every  part,  but 
the  altar  around  which  they  gathered  in  prayer 
was  not  yet  set  in  place.  The  mother  wished 
it  in  the  kitchen :  there  she  was  perplexed  with 
her  many  cares.  The  father  wished  it  in  his 
study :  God  seemed  nearer  to  him  among  his 
books.  The  son  wished  it  in  the  room  where 
guests  were  received,  that  the  stranger  entering 
might  see  that  they  worshiped  God.  At  last 
they  agreed  to  leave  the  matter  to  the  young- 
est, who  was  a  little  child.  Now  the  altar  was 
a  shaft  of  polished  wood,  very  fragrant,  and 
the  child,  who  loved  most  of  all  to  sit  be- 
fore the  great  fire  and  see  beautiful  forms  in 
the  flames,  said, '  See,  the  fire  log  is  gone ;  put 
the  altar  there/  So  because  one  would  not 

[27] 


THE  RELIGION   OF   A 


yield  to  the  other,  they  obeyed,  and  the  altar 
was  consumed,  while  its  sweet  odors  filled  the 
whole  house  —  the  kitchen,  the  study,  and  the 
guest  hall  —  and  the  child  saw  beautiful  forms 
in  the  flames."  Doubtless  the  others  came  to 
see  them  also,  as  the  non-essentials  passed  out 
of  their  religious  life. 

IVlany  fathers  and  mothers  say  to  me," 
continues  my  friend,  who  was  a  teacher  of 
science  in  an  American  college,  " '  If  my  boy 
will  only  hold  on  to  the  fundamentals/  They 
are  afraid  that  the  business  of  the  university 
is  to  overthrow  fundamentals.  As  if  funda- 
mentals could  be  overthrown!  What  they 
mean  by  fundamentals  is  their  own  conception 
of  the  truth,  the  basis  of  their  own  belief. 
They  want  their  boys  to  wear  their  clothes  — 
not  the  same  style  of  garments,  but  the  iden- 
tical clothes — with  all  the  creases  and  wrinkles 
and  patches  in  place.  Now,  the  wrinkles  and 
creases  represent  experience  and  testing,  and 
the  patches  are  the  scars  —  honorable  scars  of 
victory.  And  I  have  no  patience  with  the 
sophomoric  spirit  which  vaunts  its  reason 
and  throws  into  the  rag-bag  everything  that 
the  fathers  believed.  We  should  not  be  here 
to-day  if  our  fathers  had  not  believed  very  close 
to  the  truth.  However  far  afield  we  may  go 

[28] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


in  our  young  and  callow  days,  most  of  us  will 
be  found  revamping  the  old  beliefs  of  our 
fathers  and  mothers  when  we  go  to  work  in 
the  world.  Eighty-five  per  cent  of  our  stu- 
dents take  up  their  old  practices  again  when 
their  real  living  finds  expression.  A  little  bit 
of  real  living  brings  back  the  enthusiasm  and 
the  emotion,  and  no  one  can  be  faithful  and 
true  to  his  ideals  without  finding  God  dis- 
placing them  with  himself. 

"Calvinism  and  Arminianism  are  trifling 
matters  compared  with  the  fact  that  God  is 
and  that  we  may  call  Him  our  Father.  Unita- 
rianism,  Trinitarianism,  are  mere  word  quibbles 
compared  with  the  fact  that  the  spirit  of  Jesus 
is  in  the  world,  saving  it.  These  things  are 
not  fundamentals.  They  are  only  terms,  forged 
by  human  intellects  to  express  one  phase  of 
the  truth  as  it  appeared  to  them.  Jesus  cared 
for  none  of  these  things  except  as  they  ham- 
pered and  hindered  those  who  believed  them 
instead  of  believing  him;  who  worshiped 
them  instead  of  using  them  to  serve  their 
neighbors. 

"  The  time  comes  more  than  once  in  a  man's 
life  when  he  must  know  what  he  believes; 
when  the  truth  that  is  in  his  own  heart  is  all 
that  he  can  find.  But  no  truth  is  ours  until 

[29] 


THE   RELIGION    OF   A 


we  first  live  it;  until  it  enters  into  our  lives 
and  we  become  it." 

In  a  high  sense  no  man  can  accept  or  embrace 
the  religion  of  another.  It  must  become  his 
own  first,  or  else  he  cannot  receive  it.  If  he 
takes  it  from  another  without  change  it  is  not 
a  religion;  it  is  some  statement  of  opinion, 
some  type  of  ceremonial,  or  some  collection 
of  words,  from  which  the  life  has  long  since 
faded  away.  Or,  in  a  larger  way,  it  means 
that  he  becomes  a  member  of  a  historic  asso- 
ciation for  the  sake  of  participating  in  its 
benefits,  or,  better,  for  the  purpose  of  sharing 
its  efforts  for  the  advancement  of  humanity. 
From  his  notes  on  a  talk  before  a  Bible  Class 
I  take  these  words : 

"  If  Jesus  is  an  important  factor  in  our  social 
life,  why  should  we  not  study  him  as  we  study 
Shakespeare,  or  Luther,  or  Cassar,  and  in  exactly 
the.  same  spirit  ?  If  Christianity  summarizes 
the  great  forces  which  control  and  direct  and 
shape  our  civilization,  why,  then,  should  we 
not  study  it  as  we  would  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, and  in  exactly  the  same  spirit  ? 

"  In  studying  the  person  of  Jesus,  his  biog- 
raphy and  his  character,  we  must  do  it  in 
human  terms.  That  is  not  saying  that  there 
are  no  other  terms.  Our  object  is  to  empha- 

[30] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


size  the  humanity  of  Jesus.  There  is  a  theology 
of  Christ;  its  study  belongs  to  metaphysics. 
There  is  a  psychology  of  Christ;  its  study 
belongs  in  its  particular  place.  Our  study  is 
to  show  the  strong  and  pure,  the  successful, 
the  virile  nature,  the  picture  of  whose  life 
makes  every  true  man  stand  taller  and  every 
weak  heart  stronger. 

44  It  is  a  fact  that  no  man  can  ever  stand  true 
under  the  severest  tests  of  life  without  increas- 
ing the  self-respect  of  every  other  man  who 
knows  it.  I  never  hear  or  see  such  instances 
without  feeling  proud  that  the  human  race 
can  commit  such  virtue.  So,  setting  aside  all 
doctrines  about  Christ's  nature  and  office,  not 
for  the  reason  that  we  do  not  hold  them,  but 
because  they  are  not  for  us  just  now,  we  will 
use  this  wonderfully  simple  and  natural  teach- 
er's life  as  a  key  to  solve  the  mysteries  of  our 
own  lives. 

"  A  violet  looking  at  the  sun  can  know  only 
its  violet  rays.  Its  knowledge  fades  on  the  one 
hand  into  actinic  darkness ;  on  the  other  it  is 
lost  in  the  blues.  Its  knowledge  of  the  great 
sun  is  limited  by  the  work  the  sun  has  done  in 
it,  by  its  coincidence  with  the  sun. 

"  So  with  any  ideal,  with  any  friend.  Friend- 
ship  is  but  the  common  ground  you  and  another 

[31] 


THE  RELIGION   OF  A 


occupy.  Your  best  friend  is  he  who  widens 
this  common  ground  and  quickens  your  whole 
being,  the  one  who  makes  you  live  the  most. 
You  do  not  measure  your  friendships  by  your 
brains,  but  by  your  pulse  beats. 

"  Some  of  you  say  that  you  cannot  reconcile 
your  intellectual  and  your  spiritual  lives.  I 
think  you  never  will,  if  by  reconcile  you  mean 
coincide.  The  head  can  never  understand  the 
heart,  and  the  heart  will  always  be  doing  such 
unreasonable  things.  But  if  the  head  is  right 
in  its  sphere,  it  will  find  that  the  heart  in  its 
sphere  is  right  also. 

"Jesus  talked  in  the  language  and  figures 
of  the  everyday  life  of  his  time.  To  the  people 
who  listened  he  was  not  using  the  language 
of  the  temple,  but  of  the  street,  of  the  field,  of 
the  lake-shore.  He  talked  to  be  understood 
by  people  whom  he  understood.  We  can  only 
comprehend  his  meaning  by  understanding  the 
conditions  of  the  time,  the  people,  the  figures 
of  speech,  the  changes  that  have  come  to  the 
words  he  used. 

"The  words  of  Jesus  were  not  religious 
in  his  day  any  more  or  less  than  a  lecture  in 
hygiene  is  to-day.  We  expect  to  hear  them 
in  church  or  connect  them  with  religion,  but 
they  were  not  such  words  as  his  audiences 

[32] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


were  accustomed  to  hear  in  the  synagogues. 
They  have  become  so  largely  the  ecclesiastical 
language  of  our  time  that  it  is,  hard  for  us  to 
realize  that  they  were  not  ecclesiastical  then. 
1  He  taught  not  as  the  scribes  taught.'  We 
can  only  get  the  meaning  of  these  words  by 
taking  from  them  the  ecclesiastical  setting  and 
expressing  them  in  our  own  phraseology." 
In  my  friend's  notes  I  find  these  words  also : 
"'I  am  the  Way.'  Jesus  is  speaking  — 
speaking  of  himself.  A  quick  way  to  know 
a  man  is  to  watch  him  when  he  is  speaking 
about  himself.  Some  cannot  speak  respectfully 
of  themselves.  Others  talk  themselves  to  those 
who  have  ears  to  hear.  Listen  to  these ;  they 
are  like  children,  and  deal  with  the  truth. 

"Jesus  often  speaks  of  himself.  No  other 
religious  teacher  does  so  much  of  it.  And  yet 
one  always  feels  that  his  thoughts  are  not  with 
himself,  but  with  those  to  whom  he  is  giving 
himself  helpfully.  No  one  could  call  Jesus  an 
egotist.  There  are  teachers  who  have  wonder- 
ful power  in  selecting  beautiful  thoughts  and 
pictures  out  of  the  records  of  the  past  and 
passing  them  on  to  others.  They  have  an 
instinct  for  ideals,  and  they  build  Utopias  of 
them  that  make  this  dusty  world  seem  uncom- 
fortable,  and  their  intoxicated  followers  never 

[33] 


THE  RELIGION   OF  A 


get  a  sober  view  of  life  without  turning 
pessimists. 

"  Again,  there  are  teachers  who  talk  about 
life  and  what  they  get  out  of  it ;  who  exhibit 
the  handful  of  nuggets  they  have  dug  and  tell 
where  they  found  them.  And  as  we  listen 
we  are  aroused  to  dig,  too.  Their  hopeful  and 
successful  lives  quicken  ours.  Jesus  belonged 
to  this  second  class.  There  is  a  peculiar  power 
in  his  *  I  say  unto  you/  One  feels  that  he  has 
lived  his  words  and  that  they  can  be  lived. 
Solomon  holds  up  ideals  and  precepts,  but  does 
not  live  them.  And  every  view  of  Solomon 
we  get  through  his  words  shows  a  pessimist 
whom  life  has  soured.  We  feel  like  saying, 
*  Solomon,  take  your  own  medicine ' ;  *  Physi- 
cian, heal  thyself/  The  ideal  of  Jesus  is  him- 
self, and  because  he  was  so  much  of  a  man 
and  dealt  so  much  with  commonplace  things, 
we  feel  that  we  can  do  as  he  did. 

"  Precepts  and  rules  of  life  and  high  ideals 
are  v^gf"l  as  they  mold  and  shape  us  while  we 
behold  them.  They  are  food  for  action.  They 
are  not  guides  to  life.  Habits  are  guides  to 
living,  and  habits  are  formed  by  doing.  One 
cannot  stop  at  every  crossroad  to  consult  a 
notebook  for  the  proper  precept.  Men  are 
neither  trained  nor  saved  by  being  preached 

[34] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


at.  They  seem  to  enjoy  it,  and  often  pay 
liberally  for  a  weekly  exhibition  of  beautiful 
ideals  and  well  worded  proverbs.  These  de- 
light and  amuse  them,  as  the  bottles  on  the 
druggists'  shelves  amuse  a  child,  but  they 
make  wry  faces  if  asked  to  taste  them. 

"  A  patriarch,  a  preacher,  who  is  surrounded 
by  a  family  of  men  and  women,  said :  '  I  never 
tried  to  talk  religion  to  my  children  but  once. 
I  got  my  little  girl,  one  Sunday  afternoon,  and 
preached  at  her.  Next  week  I  said,  "Come, 
let  papa  talk  to  you."  She  said,  "  All  right, 
papa;  but  please  do  not  talk  as  you  did  last 
Sunday." 

"  Far  more  reaching  than  a  father's  words 
—  and  fathers  are  apt  to  be  popes  in  their 
families  —  is  a  father's  life;  and  a  mother  is 
not  a  collection  of  fine  sayings,  but  an  eternal 
influence  of  finer  acts.  I  have  heard  more 
than  one  mother  mourn  because  she  could  not 
say  the  right  thing,  she  who  was  all  the  time 
an  incarnation,  in  her  world  of  boys  and  girls, 
of  the  living  God.  Men  and  women  are 
molded  by  the  silent,  constant  influence  of  a 
home  far  more  than  by  the  daily  scolding  and 
advising.  Morning  prayers  are  a  poor  sub- 
stitute for  a  day  of  religion.  A  home  saturated 
with  peace  and  purity  is  the  larger  part  of  the 

135] 


THE   RELIGION   OF  A 


training  of  every  child.  Schools  and  univer- 
sities are  extras  to  be  added  later." 

Another  fragment  is  this : 

"  One  day,  when  Jesus  was  talking  about 
God  to  his  disciples,  Philip  interrupted  him 
by  asking, '  Lord,  show  us  the  Father  and  we 
will  be  satisfied/  And  Jesus  said  to  Philip, 
'  Have  I  been  so  long  time  with  you,  and  yet 
hast  thou  not  known  me  ?  The  Father  and  I 
are  so  mixed,  so  amalgamated,  that  my  loving 
is  his  loving;  my  goodness,  his  goodness; 
my  wisdom,  his  wisdom.  I  am  in  the  Father 
and  the  Father  in  me,  and  all  these  works  that 
I  am  doing,  we  —  the  Father  and  I  —  are  doing. 
The  words  I  speak  and  the  works  I  do  are  his 
works  and  words/ 

"This  was  the  Master's  way  of  quieting 
Philip's  fears  that  he  could  not  get  near 
enough  to  God  to  feel  at  home  with  him. 
Jesus  was  conscious  of  God.  He  never  de- 
fined him.  He  never  sought  to  prove  his 
existence  or  establish  any  doctrines  about 
him.  He  assumed  God,  and  talked  about  him 
as  naturally  as  a  boy  talks  about  his  father. 
When  he  was  going  about  doing  good,  he 
unquestionably  recognized  that  God  was  doing 
the  same;  so  they  worked  together.  I  have 
noticed  that  a  boy  who  occasionally  takes 

[36] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


hold  and  helps  me  in  something  I  am  doing 
does  not  first  ask  for  proof  that  I  am  his 
father,  nor  does  he  insist  that  some  one  point 
out  the  family  likeness.  He  just  takes  hold 
and  helps,  or  imagines  he  helps,  and  links 
himself  to  me  by  talking  a  great  deal  about 
our  work  and  what  we  are  doing.  He  just 
assumes  that  I  am,  and  that  our  life  is  one,  as 
it  is.  This  is  the  way  that  Jesus  acts.  When 
he  is  working,  he  expects  God  to  co-operate, 
and  he  does.  When  he  is  in  trouble,  he  cries 
out  for  help,  and  it  comes.  When  he  is 
anxious  about  leaving  the  crude  and  unripe 
disciples  alone  in  the  world,  he  talks  the 
whole  situation  over  with  his  Father  as  natu- 
rally as  if  they  were  sitting  together  in  the 
firelight  before  some  family  hearth  stone. 
This  wonderfully  successful  and  ideal  life 
that  Jesus  led  received  its  whole  explanation 
and  impetus  from  this  relationship  between 
him  and  his  God.  We  cannot  read  about  it 
or  study  his  life  without  believing  that  the 
relationship  was  real.  Whether  God  did  his 
part  or  not,  we  cannot  escape  the  conclusion 
that  Jesus  lived  and  loved  and  served  and 
died  as  he  did  because  of  his  conviction  that 
he  and  his  Father  were  one,  —  one  in  spirit, 
in  aim,  in  purpose.  And  when  we  think  of 

[37] 


THE  RELIGION   OF   A 


the  stupendous  miracle  of  Christianity,  when 
we  see  his  principles  abiding,  his  life  and 
spirit  going  into  all  the  corners  of  the  world, 
we  must  believe  that  God  was  with  him,  and 
he  knew  it.  It  is  that  which  *  works/  which 
stands  the  tests  of  time  and  place,  which  has 
God  with  it ;  and  the  everlasting  life  of  Jesus 
is  the  strongest  proof  we  could  have  that  his 
method  of  conscious  participation  with  God's 
life  is  the  true  way  of  living. 

"  Let  me  choose  out  of  your  lives  some  of 
the  real  things,  and  ask  you  to  interpret  them. 
Let  us  consider  love.  I  choose  this  because  the 
deepest,  tenderest  experiences  of  life  are  associ- 
ated with  it.  The  best  things  that  have  come 
to  you  have  been  brought  by  love,  and  you 
recognize  yourself  at  your  best  when  you  are 
loving.  Do  you  remember  some  time  when 
you  were  in  trouble,  when  perhaps  you  went 
near  to  the  brink  of  the  valley  of  shadows, 
when  your  arm  needed  strength  and  your 
heart  sympathy  ?  And  do  you  remember  how 
they  came  ?  How  strong  hands  gripped  yours, 
how  hearty  words  of  cheer  drove  out  your 
loneliness,  how  little  acts  multiplied,  until  you 
were  surrounded  by  loving-kindness  and 
tender  mercies?  We  call  this  friendship.  It 
is  God  abroad  in  his  world.  He  that  hath 

[38] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


seen  a  friend  hath  seen  God  also.  Do  you 
remember  those  broken  days  of  childhood, 
when  you  in  many  moods  mixed  good  and 
bad  in  the  mosaic  of  your  growing  life? 
When  you  were  thoughtless,  there  was  one 
who  never  forgot;  when  you  were  wrong, 
there  was  one  who  was  always  kind;  when 
you  were  in  tears,  there  was  one  who  wept 
with  you ;  when  you  rejoiced,  there  was  one 
who  was  glad.  You  call  this  sacred  friend 
4  Mother/  Is  it  possible  that  any  of  you 
have  known  a  mother's  love  and  yet  know 
not  God?  He  that  hath  seen  a  mother  hath 
seen  God  also." 

In  our  curious  little  Anglo-Saxon  fashion, 
every  man  in  America,  as  in  Great  Britain,  is 
ticketed  as  of  some  political  and  of  some 
religious  organization.  It  matters  not  how 
persistently  he  may  scratch  the  party  ticket, 
he  is  still  numbered  with  the  party,  and  in 
some  states  he  is  required  annually  to  confess 
his  faith,  or  else  not  to  vote  at  the  primaries. 
It  matters  not  how  consistently  he  may  evade 
the  means  of  salvation  provided  by  his  church, 
he  can  never  quite  outgrow  the  mark  of  its 
primitive  label.  All  this  is  a  result  of  heredity, 
a  species  of  inherited  knighthood  through 
which  we  as  Anglo-Saxons,  and  mostly  in  no 

[39] 


THE   RELIGION   OF   A 


other  sense,  join  with  the  Shintoists  in  the 
worship  of  ancestors.  "  So  live  that  men  by 
your  good  deeds  may  know  your  ancestors" 
is  a  Shinto  maxim.  This  we  have  changed 
to  read :  "  Know  the  religion  and  politics  of 
your  ancestors  by  your  nominal  affiliations." 
'  In  this  fantastic  Anglo-Saxon  fashion  my 
friend  was  ticketed  as  a  Republican  and  a 
Methodist.  The  first  need  not  concern  us 
save  that  the  name  once  stood  for  opposition 
to  human  slavery.  As  for  the  other,  it  was 
with  him  a  name  sacred  to  a  mother's  affec- 
tion, and  as  available  as  any  other  form  of 
religion  as  the  backbone  of  a  wholesome 
human  life.  But  the  desire  to  bring  others 
into  the  hereditary  fold  did  not  exist  with 
my  friend.  If  he  were  told  that  a  hundred 
men  had  joined  the  Methodist  Church,  coming 
over  from  the  Presbyterians,  the  Baptists,  or 
the  Catholics,  it  would  have  interested  him 
no  more  than  to  be  told  that  a  hundred  fine 
sheep  had  been  driven  across  from  Santa  Cruz 
County  into  Santa  Clara.  If  the  hundred 
men  had  been  reclaimed  from  a  life  of  indiffer- 
ence to  the  ideals  of  any  of  these  churches, 
it  would  have  been  a  matter  for  him  to  con- 
sider, especially  if  their  faith  bore  fruitage 
in  works. 

[40] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


The  size  of  an  ecclesiastical  organization 
was  to  him  a  matter  of  no  real  importance. 
If  its  numbers  increase,  probably  its  minis- 
trations serve  the  needs  of  the  many.  If 
the  group  persists,  the  reason  may  be  that 
it  meets  more  specialized  needs.  But  in 
any  event  the  question  of  numbers  was  one 
of  no  import  to  my  friend,  and  he  would 
be  equally  unmoved  before  the  arguments 
derived  from  apostolic  succession,  from  the 
significance  of  a  Greek  verb,  or  from  the 
dictum  of  an  infallible  council.  For  it  is  only 
the  truth  which  makes  free,  and  the  truth 
which  was  once  hidden  from  the  prophets  is 
now  sometimes  at  least  revealed  unto  babes. 
There  was  to  him  no  outside  authority  as  to 
truth  and  practice,  only  the  sanction  which 
one  sane  action  yields  to  the  next.  Nothing 
that  is  helpful  to  man  can  be  displeasing  to 
God.  Neither  can  man  "serve  God  with  a 
lie."  And  his  sincerity  led  my  friend  to  look 
sometimes  with  overmuch  distrust  on  the 
amenities  of  religious  service.  The  austere 
Puritan  mind  is  doubtful  of  the  concourse  of 
sweet  sounds.  It  does  not  naturally  worship 
its  God  in  methods  which  appeal  first  of  all  to 
the  eye  and  ear.  Noble  music  yields  sensuous 
pleasure  rather  than  an  impulse  to  move  things 

[41] 


THE  RELIGION   OF  A 


and  to  change  customs.  Beauty  of  form  or 
tone  has  little  to  do  with  the  impulse  to  action. 
The  noblest  paintings  in  the  world  were  given 
to  adorn  a  house  of  worship.  The  finest  music 
has  the  same  inspiration.  "  The  groves  were 
God's  first  temples,"  not  unadorned,  but 
beautiful  in  an  austere  fashion,  their  beauty 
not  at  the  easy  access  of  those  who  dwell  in 
kings'  houses.  But  our  Puritan  ancestors 
distrusted  even  this.  Because  of  the  riotous 
scarlet  of  the  autumn  woods  of  Massachusetts, 
according  to  Thoreau,  these  people  on  the 
hills  "  built  meeting-houses  and  fenced  them 
around  with  horse-sheds." 

It  is  not  necessary  to  lay  too  much  stress  on 
these  matters.  Our  fathers  were  iconoclasts 
and  destroyed  some  images  of  beauty  with 
the  clay  gods  they  hated.  But  my  friend  had 
a  tolerance  too  broad  to  be  a  foe  to  beauty. 
It  was  to  him  not  the  first  element  in  religion, 
nor  the  second,  nor  the  third,  but  as  an  ex- 
pression of  harmony  in  human  life,  a  factor 
to  be  reckoned  with  and  not  despised.  But 
he  needed  no  ritual.  The  direct  expression  of 
individual  feeling,  however  crude,  has  in  it 
something  that  transcends  perfection.  The 
Oxford  movement  towards  perfect  expression 
would  doubtless  have  seemed  to  him  a  move- 

[42] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


ment  away  from  something  to  express.  Broad 
Church  he  was  and  Low  Church,  and  broad 
and  low  in  this  technical  sense  the  American 
in  his  religious  ceremonials  is  likely  ever  to  be. 
We  may  not  claim  this  as  a  merit;  it  may 
even  be  a  fault :  but  in  any  case  it  is  a  natural 
fault  of  democracy,  and  it  is  from  the  open 
level  of  democracy  that  greatness  is  surest  to 
arise.  For  greatness  never  asks  itself,  What 
is  the  proper  way  to  do  this  ?  How  was  it 
done  by  those  who  did  it  last  ?  How  should 
I  comport  myself  to  fall  into  the  apostolic 
succession  ? 

The  gift  of  song  was  denied  to  my  friend. 
I  know  of  but  a  single  case  in  which  he  ex- 
pressed his  thoughts  in  verse,  but  this  verse 
is  worth  saving  for  the  practical  religion 
which  is  expressed  in  it. 

Oft  in  the  dusty  course  it  seems 
The  face  of  him  I  am  to  meet 
Is  dimmed  before  my  straining  eyes ; 
And  silence  answers  to  my  cries  — 
Silence  and  doubt  my  questions  greet. 

Yet,  pressing  onward  to  my  goal, 
Some  breeze  will  blow  the  dust  apart. 
'T  is  dust  my  feet  have  raised  that  hides 
The  Father's  smile  that  e'er  abides. 
The  dust  has  changed,  but  not  his  Heart. 


[43 


THE   RELIGION   OF   A 


The  silence  is  my  ignorance 
When  reason  seeks  him  to  define. 
Life's  mysteries  are  solved  by  life, 
And  doubts  that  rise  in  anxious  strife 
Before  the  Love  of  God  decline. 

We  seek  in  wordy  phrase  to  paint 
The  Unknown  God  to  finite  eyes. 
Our  logic  kills  pur  charity, 
Our  wisdom  widens  mystery, 
Our  altars  bear  no  sacrifice. 

Yet  to  the  listening  ear  God  speaks 
In  myriad  tongues  on  sea  and  shore, 
In  childish  prattle,  mothers'  songs, 
When  prophets  cry  against  men's  wrongs, 
Or  love  knocks  at  some  prison  door. 

Faith  born  of  love  and  fed  by  hope 
Sees  God  where  reason's  eye  is  dim, 
And  reason  led  by  faith  will  prove 
So  strong  that  doubts  can  never  move, 
Nor  clouds  disturb  our  trust  in  him. 

Then  courage,  fainting  one,  take  heart ; 
Thy  God  in  clouds  hides  not  his  face, 
The  veil  is  thine,  thine  is  the  fear, 
Withhold  thy  cries,  list  to  his  cheer, 
And  onward  press,  fed  by  his  grace. 

-The  religion  of  Jesus  has  no  necessary 
connection  with  any  Church.  But  the  need 
of  democracy  to-day  does  not  lie  in  the  direc- 
tion of  minimizing  the  work  or  influence  of 
the  Church,  nor  of  the  churches,  if  we  regard 

[44] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


the  individual  groups  as  distinguished  from 
the  operations  of  the  whole. 

For  the  Church  is  a  natural  adjustment  of 
the  desire  to  hold  whatever  of  spiritual  good 
the  best  of  men  have  attained.  In  the  words 
of  Dr.  Joseph  H.  Crooker,  "  The  world  needs 
an  institution  organized  by  his  spirit  and  filled 
with  his  influence,  that  men  may  be  instructed 
in  his  gospel  and  trained  to  citizenship  in  the 
kingdom  of  love  which  he  inaugurated.  The 
necessity  is  not  that  we  should  have  slavish 
disciples,  blind  followers  or  mere  imitators  of 
Jesus.  A  special  institution  is  surely  needed 
to  provide  a  method  by  which  his  personal 
impulse  may  be  brought  to  bear  on  human 
souls,  and  by  which  human  beings  may  be 
trained  to  service  under  the  authority  of  an 
equal  love.  The  Church  administers  life 
to  those  in  need  because  it  is  the  servant  of 
one  whose  heart  abounded  in  love.  The  love 
which  his  heart  felt  and  the  love  which 
our  hearts  need  is  the  measure  of  what  the 
Church  is  worth  to  humanity." 

A  bit  of  wisdom  is  this,  the  last  lines  from 
my  friend's  pencil  and  never  finished. 

"  A  very  large  part  of  the  intellectual  class 
finds  itself  to-day  between  the  horns  of  a 
dilemma.  On  the  one  hand,  the  mind  is 

[45] 


THE   RELIGION    OF   A 


dominated  by  inheritance  and  training  until  it 
identifies  religion  with  its  institutions,  its  dog- 
mas, its  forms,  its  figures  of  speech ;  on  the 
other,  this  mind  is  trained  by  the  methods 
and  literature  of  the  age  to  war  with  the  insti- 
tutions of  religion,  to  ignore  her  forms  and 
reject  her  dogmas. 

"By  this  dilemma  one  who  would  be  re- 
ligious is  tempted  to  separate  his  religion  from 
his  intellectual  life  to  the  great  disturbance 
of  the  former,  or  to  close  his  eyes  to  what 
they  see  and  distrust  reason  and  experience 
so  far  as  they  lead  him  away  from  his  faith. 
This  is  a  form  of  intellectual  dishonesty  not 
so  common  now  as  a  few  years  ago.  By  this 
same  dilemma  one  who  would  be  rational  is 
tempted  to  hoodwink  himself  by  imagining 
that  he  believes  what  he  knows  he  doubts, 
or  to  classify  himself  as  unreligious  altogether 
because  he  is  not  like  some  people  who  say 
they  believe  what  he  must  doubt,  and  who 
loudly  affirm  their  own  religion.  The  dilemma 
is  not  a  new  one,  but  to  those  whose  expand- 
ing intellectual  life  leads  them  to  it  for  the 
first  time  it  is  new  and  very  real.  Of  these 
there  are  many  in  our  midst. 

"  I  believe  that  every  man  can  and  ought  to 
be  religious.  I  do  not  think  he  is  a  complete 

[46] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


man  until  he  is  religious.  If  you  will  accept 
my  definition  of  religion,  you  will  think  so 
loo.  I  cannot  make  you  religious.  I  would 
not  if  I  could.  That  is  your  part.  Being  is 
not  born  of  hearing,  but  of  doing.  But  I  have 
learned  some  things  in  my  experience  with 
young  men  and  women  that  have  been  very 
helpful  to  me  and  to  others  to  whom  I  have 
given  them.  Some  of  these  things  I  bring 
to  you,  hoping  they  may  be  needed.  I  like  to 
bring  to  you  the  best  my  life  gives  me,  and 
the  best  thing  out  of  my  experience  is  that  the 
life  that  Jesus  lived  is  the  best  life  for  any 
man  or  woman.  People  do  not  readily  believe 
this.  When  we  remember  how  quickly  men 
throw  away  old  things  for  newer  and  better, 
how  rapidly  new  inventions  are  adopted  the 
world  over,  we  can  but  wonder  that  the  best 
life  has  so  slowly  commended  itself  to  the  race. 
But  I  think  we  are  beginning  to  see  that  the 
world  has  had  but  imperfect  and  few  glimpses 
of  the  real  life  of  Jesus.  An  artificial, 
made  Jesus,  constructed  of  Greek  philosophy, 
Oriental  mysticism,  and  Roman  legalism,  has 
grown  up  between  the  real  Jesus  and  a 
harassed  people  who  yet  instinctively  feel  that 
there  is  a  living  being  within  the  mass  of  stuff 
associated  with  his  name. 

[47] 


THE  RELIGION   OF  A 


"  With  most  people  to-day  the  terms  Chris- 
tianity and  Religion  are  synonymous.  Even 
the  Jew  of  to-day  will  speak  of  the  civilization 
which  he  himself  has  so  well  helped  to  build 
as  a  Christian  civilization.  The  adjective 
Christian  and  the  term  Christianity  are  used 
to  designate  and  define  that  movement  which, 
wider  than  any  church,  broader  than  any  creed, 
has  carried  our  moral  and  social  and  intellectual 
life  far  in  advance  of  that  of  any  other  age. 
Even  men  who  would  rather  believe  like 
Buddha  or  Confucius  prefer  to  live  like 
Christians.  Christianity  is  one  of  the  very 
few  universal  things  in  the  world  to-day, 
until  we  seek  to  define  it — then  Babel  ensues. 
Now  the  reason  for  this  confusion  and  lack 
of  agreement  is  the  fact  that  men  do  not  base 
their  definitions  upon  the  reality,  but  upon 
deductions  and  doctrines  which  from  their  very 
nature  can  never  be  tested  by  experience. 

"This  confusion  of  tongues  has  turned 
many  true  men  and  women  away  from  Chris- 
tianity. Go  to  them  and  say,  in  Jesus'  name, 
'Well  done,  good  and  faithful  servant;  you 
are  a  Christian,'  and  they  will  answer,  *I  never 
was  baptized,  never  joined  the  church,  never 
recited  the  creed,  and  never  said,  Lord,  Lord/ 
Then  you  may  answer,  'But  I  was  hungry, 

[48] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


and  ye  gave  me  meat.  I  was  thirsty,  and  ye 
gave  me  drink.  I  was  a  stranger  (homesick 
and  lonely),  and  ye  took  me  into  your  home. 
I  was  naked,  and  ye  clothed  me.  I  was  sick, 
and  ye  visited  me.  I  was  in  prison,  and  ye 
came  unto  me/  This  kingdom  is  made  of 
such  as  these.  If  we  would  use  Jesus'  test 
of  a  Christian  and  separate  the  men-serving 
sheep  from  the  do-nothing  goats,  there  are 
not  enough  churches  in  this  world  to  house 
the  host  of  Christians,  not  even  allowing  for 
the  church  space  that  the  goats  would  have 
to  vacate. 

"It  is  pathetic  to  see  how  the  world  is 
struggling  toward  the  Christian  ideals  almost 
in  spite  of  the  great  institutions  which  have 
so  long  stood  as  the  representatives  of  Christ. 
The  pulpit  no  longer  has  a  monopoly  in  pro- 
claiming the  truth.  The  truest  religious  life 
finds  expression  now  in  a  thousand  ways  that 
have  not  yet  been  adopted  by  any  institution. 

"  For  the  Church  this  means  that  it  loses 
that  great  body  of  true  and  earnest  men  who 
do  not  recognize  their  ideal  of  humanity  in  it. 
But  for  many  of  these  true  and  earnest  men, 
lovers  of  their  fellows,  it  means  that  they 
classify  themselves  as  heretics  and  outcasts 
and  unreligious.  This  in  itself  does  not  make 

149] 


THE  RELIGION   OF  A 


them  so  except  so  far  as  a  man  unconsciously 
lives  up  to  the  reputation  he  makes  for  himself. 
Custom  has  so  identified  religion  with  its 
institutions  in  our  minds  that  it  is  difficult 
to  think  of  one  without  the  other.  It  is  a 
sign  of  vitality  when  a  man  inside  of  a  church 
or  outside  recognizes  his  religion  as  his  life, 
independent  of  any  means  of  expression.  The 
commendation  '  Well  done '  will  give  certain 
self-approval  to  any  one  who  faithfully  works 
with  the  trend  of  things,  but  it  will  come 
sooner  if  he  knows  he  has  a  right  to  expect  it. 
Many  people  come  to  know  Jesus  by  their 
righteous  lives  who  would  never  know  him 
through  what  often  seems  to  them  the  fantastic 
and  irrational  processes  of  Christian  institu- 
tions. Kindness  and  sympathy  and  mercy  and 
love  are  eternal  graces  and  know  their  kind 
wherever  found,  and  are  known  by  them. 

"  But  must  I  not  believe  this  or  that  about 
God  or  Jesus  before  I  am  religious?  Most 
certainly  not ;  only  so  much  as  finds  response 
in  your  own  life.  It  is  only  that  part  of  God 
or  Jesus  that  we  can  appropriate,  assimilate, 
and  recognize  as  possible  and  attainable  in 
our  own  lives  that  is  of  any  use  to  us. 

"  Oh  that  religion  might  be  put  upon  a  more 
natural  and  commonplace  basis !  So  much  of 

[50] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


the  supernatural  as  is  not  founded  on  our 
daily  experiences  or  suggested  by  our  living 
might  be  removed. 

"The  instinct  of  worship  is  indestructible 
in  man's  nature.  Religion  is  the  activity  of 
our  sympathies,  the  feeding  of  our  hopes,  the 
strengthening  of  our  knowledge  of  the  trend 
of  things.  Men  worship  best  together,  but 
they  philosophize  best  alone.  But  you  say, 
'  If  I  believe  a  part  of  Jesus'  life,  must  not  I 
believe  it  all?'  No.  Your  life  is  founded 
upon  so  much  of  truth  as  you  apprehend; 
the  rest  is  mystery  to  you,  and  whatever 
your  attitude  toward  it,  you  do  not  keep  it  to 
live  with." 

The  historic  church,  whatever  may  be  our 
view  of  the  infallibility  of  its  guiding  spirit, 
has  never  been  infallible  in  the  details  of  its 
deeds.  Its  outlying  labors  are  the  works  of 
men  with  all  the  faults  of  men,  cruelty,  care- 
lessness, injustice,  and  prejudice  to  which 
men  and  groups  of  men  are  prone.  It  is  easy 
enough  to  find  in  the  same  church,  in  any 
church  at  any  time,  almost  every  extreme 
in  the  range  of  human  character  or  action, 
whether  individual  or  collective.  St.  Vincent 
de  Paul  and  the  Duke  of  Alva  were  not  far 
apart  in  the  church  relations.  The  same 

[51] 


THE  RELIGION   OF  A 


church,  any  church,  to-day  is  the  shelter  of 
the  clerical  renegade  or  the  commercial  bandit 
as  well  as  the  hard-working  saint. 

"  The  Defenders  of  the  Faith,"  says  Charles 
Ferguson,  "  have  made  it  hard  to  believe.  .  .  . 
The  cruelest  men  have  been  makers  of  empires, 
as  Napoleon  and  Philip  II,  excepting  only 
the  makers  of  churches,  as  Torquemada  and 
Calvin.  God  will  have  sons.  And  the 
twentieth  century  belongs  neither  to  the 
priests  nor  to  the  politicians." 

Large  or  small,  time-honored  or  temporary, 
each  organization  of  men  must  justify  itself  by 
its  influence  on  human  life.  There  are  no 
chosen  people  save  those  who  have  chosen 
themselves.  The  "God  of  things  as  they 
are  "  recognizes  no  "  privileged  corporations," 
and  with  him  "the  traditions  of  a  thousand 
years  are  but  as  the  hearsay  of  yesterday." 

This  allegory  is  from  the  pen  of  William 
Lowe  Bryan: 

"  In  London  I  saw  two  pictures.  One  was 
of  a  woman.  You  would  not  mistake  it  for 
any  of  the  Greek  goddesses.  It  had  a  splendor 
and  majesty  such  as  Phidias  might  have  given 
to  a  woman  Jupiter.  But  not  terrible.  The 
culmination  of  the  awful  beauty  was  in  an 
expression  of  matchless  compassion.  If  there 

[52] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


had  been  other  figures  they  must  have  been 
suffering  humanity  at  her  feet. 

"  The  other  was  also  of  a  woman.  Whose 
face  it  is  hard  to  say.  Not  the  Furies,  not 
Lady  Macbeth,  not  Catherine  de  Medici,  not 
Philip  the  Second,  not  Nero,  not  any  face  you 
have  ever  seen,  but  a  gathering  up  from  all 
the  faces  you  have  seen  —  the  greatness,  the 
splendor,  the  savagery,  the  greed,  the  pride, 
the  hate,  the  mercilessness,  into  one  colossal, 
terrifyingly  Satanic  woman  face.  The  first 
was  clothed  in  simple,  soft,  white  robe;  the 
other  in  a  befitting  tragic  splendor,  mostly 
blood-red.  I  looked  from  one  to  the  other. 
What  immeasurable  distance  between  them! 
What  single  point  have  they  in  common? 
But  as  I  look  back  and  forth  I  seem  to  see 
a  certain  similarity.  It  grows  upon  me.  I 
am  credulous.  I  am  appalled.  Then  one 
touches  me  and  whispers:  'They  are  the 
same.  It  is  the  Church/  In  London  I  saw 
this  — in  the  air." 

These  same  two  pictures,  the  red  Church  and 
the  white,  I  saw  myself  not  many  years  ago, 
the  one  at  Rotterdam,  the  other  in  the  Pennine 
Alps.  At  the  corner  of  the  market  place  at 
Rotterdam  there  stood,  for  three  hundred  years, 
a  tall  house  which  bore  over  its  door  this 

[53] 


THE  RELIGION    OF  A 


inscription:  IN  DUIZEND  VREEZEN,  "In  a  thou- 
sand terrors/'  In  the  last  decade,  which  has 
swept  away  historic  Rotterdam,  leaving  a  new, 
clean,  and  quite  uninteresting  city,  this  house 
has  been  torn  down.  But  for  a  long  time  it 
stood  as  a  memory  of  the  bitterness  of  religious 
conflict.  When  the  Spanish  troops  ravaged 
the  Netherlands,  a  band  of  Dutch  Protestants 
gathered  in  this  house.  They  killed  a  number 
of  goats,  piled  them  up  behind  the  door,  which 
they  left  ajar,  while  the  blood  of  the  beasts 
flowed  out  over  the  lintels.  When  the  Spanish 
troops  came  to  this  door  they  saw  the  blood 
and  felt  their  carcasses  as  they  pushed  against 
the  door.  Then  they  passed  by,  for  it  seemed 
that  in  this  house  all  deeds  of  murder  were 
already  accomplished.  Inside  the  people  passed 
the  night  in  a  thousand  terrors,  and  later  it 
became  a  historic  monument,  with  its  pointed 
gables,  sagging  roof,  and  little  round  win- 
dows as  if  made  of  the  bottoms  of  bottles, 
and  the  name  of  the  house  was  IN  DUIZEND 

VREEZEN. 

This  was  the  red  work  of  the  red  Church. 
There  is  the  white  one  also,  and  the  two  are 
one  and  the  same.  The  long  road  from  Aosta 
in  Italy,  by  Saint  Remy,  to  Martigny  in  Swit- 
zerland, leads  over  the  high  mountain  pass 

[54] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


where  a  thousand  years  ago  the  Saracen  brig- 
ands held  sway  and  made  human  sacrifices 
in  the  worship  of  "Jupiter  Pen."  Here  in 
those  days  the  young  priest,  Bernard  de 
Menthon,  whom  they  now  call  Saint,  drove 
out  the  brigands,  destroyed  the  statue  of 
Jupiter,  and  set  in  its  place  the  hospice 
which  we  now  call  the  Great  Saint  Bernard. 
This  hospice  stands  in  a  mountain  pass  of  the 
sternest  kind,  the  center  of  rain  and  wind  in 
the  summer,  of  whirling  storms  of  snow  and 
blasts  of  boundless  violence  all  through  the 
ice-bound  winter.  The  peasants  of  that  re- 
gion are  forced  to  cross  this  pass  in  the 
rounds  of  their  migratory  labors,  and  it  is 
the  work  of  monks  and  dogs  of  St.  Bernard 
to  make  this  journey  possible. 

Soon  after  leaving  Rotterdam  I  crossed  this 
pass  on  an  August  day,  but  in  the  face  of  a 
suffocating  storm.  Many  travelers  came  over 
the  mountain  that  day.  Among  them  were 
a  man  and  his  wife,  Italian  peasants  who  had 
been  over  the  mountains  to  spend  a  day  or 
two  with  friends  in  some  village  on  the  Swiss 
side,  and  were  now  returning  home.  Man 
and  woman  were  dressed  in  their  peasants' 
best,  and  with  them  was  a  little  girl,  some 
four  years  old.  The  child  carried  a  toy  horse 

[55J 


THE   RELIGION   OF   A 


in  her  hands,  the  gift  of  some  friend  below. 
As  they  toiled  up  the  steep  path  in  the  blind- 
ing snow,  all  of  them  thinly  clad  and  dressed 
only  for  summer,  they  were  chilled  through 
and  through,  while  the  child  was  almost 
frozen.  The  monks  came  out  to  meet  them, 
took  the  child  in  their  arms,  and  brought  her 
and  her  parents  to  the  fire,  covered  her  shoul- 
ders with  a  warm  shawl,  touched  the  toy  horse 
gently,  as  though  it  were  a  holy  image,  and 
sent  them  down  the  mountain  to  their  home 
in  the  valley,  warmed  and  filled. 

This  was  a  simple  act,  of  course,  an  act  of 
every  day,  a  duty  of  the  outlying  fringe  of  the 
white  Church,  which  cares  for  the  sick  and 
the  poor.  But  red  Church  and  white  Church, 
in  all  their  ramifications,  each  is  a  necessary 
part  in  the  struggle  of  humanity  to  actualize 
the  teachings  of  Jesus. 

The  religious  philosophy  of  the  active  Amer- 
ican tends  unconsciously  toward  testing  all 
truth  by  its  availability  for  action.  Each  doc- 
trine must  work  itself  out  in  terms  of  life.  The 
test  of  truth  is  this :  Can  we  trust  our  lives  to 
it?  If  we  trust  in  any  way,  in  the  long  run  it 
is  our  life  which  we  risk.  Whatever  will  work 
in  the  conduct  of  life  strengthening  it,  enrich- 
ing it,  giving  it  a  higher  trend,  must,  so  far  as 

[56] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


it  goes,  have  elements  of  truth.  If  it  were  not 
true  it  would  not  work.  It  would  not  long 
continue  even  to  seem  to  work.  But  these 
human  theories  or  conceptions  are  never  sim- 
ple or  pure.  Error  is  always  mixed  with  the 
truth,  and  error  is  not  livable.  It  cannot  be 
wrought  into  the  elements  of  sound  and  whole- 
some life.  Wrong  belief  is  more  dangerous 
than  incomplete  belief,  for  all  truth  stated  in 
human  terms  must  be  left  incomplete.  We 
can  never  finish  the  equation.  That  a  form  of 
religion  favors  sobriety,  develops  charity,  and 
yields  consolation  in  time  of  trouble  proves 
that  there  is  truth  in  it.  But  it  does  not  prove 
that  it  is  all  true,  or  that  any  of  its  distinctive 
characters  are  true,  or  that  truth  or  even 
virtue  animated  its  founders.  It  is  the  busi- 
ness of  science  and  of  philosophy,  which  is 
the  logic  of  science,  to  purify  these  concepts, 
to  separate  from  the  mass  those  elements  on 
which  the  conduct  of  life  may  rest. 

"  We  will  tread  the  floors  of  hell  if  need  be," 
says  Dr.  William  M.  Salter,  "  rather  than  hocus- 
pocus  ourselves  into  believing  it  is  heaven. 
We  will  face  reality  and  by  long  facing  it, 
and  above  all  working  in  it,  we  may,  under 
the  surface  and  the  scum,  detect  traces  of 
heaven  in  it;  not  traces  that  we  put  there, 

[57] 


THE   RELIGION    OF   A 


God  forbid,  but  that  are  there,  immanent, 
struggling,  and  destined  yet  to  transform  the 
whole." 

In  emotionalism  as  such  my  friend  finds 
no  necessary  aid  to  religion.  Not  how  we 
feel,  but  to  what  line  of  conduct  do  our  feel- 
ings lead.  Love  is  not  love  unless  it  contains 
the  impulse  of  renewed  life.  It  must  purify 
itself  by  action.  "  If  thou  lovest  me,  feed  my 
lambs."  There  is  no  other  evidence.  There 
is  no  other  way  in  which  emotion  can  impinge 
on  religion.  "Sensations,"  says  my  friend, 
"  are  within  the  reach  of  all."  Preachers  deal 
with  them  sometimes.  Our  rituals  and  our 
choirs  give  them.  There  are  books  that  pile 
up  great  waves  of  emotion  in  us,  almost  as 
real  as  if  we  had  earned  them.  I  have  read 
of  battles  so  vividly  portrayed  that  my  cold 
blood  grew  hot  and  I  felt  like  a  hero.  I  cooled 
down,  a  little  more  weary  than  before;  that 
was  all.  I  have  listened  to  great  preachers 
who  talked  so  familiarly  of  holy  things  and 
made  them  so  real  that  earth  has  seemed  dreary 
when  I  touched  it  again.  Emotions  are  dan- 
gerous things  unless  they  find  an  outlet  in 
action.  We  can  so  narcotize  ourselves  with 
holy  things  that  our  senses  will  lie  to  us.  We 
can  meditate  on  holy  things  until  we  feel  that 

[58] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


we  are  holy  too.  But  periods  of  rude  awak- 
ening come.  We  find  we  have  been  hearing 
and  not  doing;  saying  Lord!  Lord!  and  not 
doing  God's  will. 

"  Exercise  the  angel ;  never  wait  to  exorcise 
the  devil.  No  animal  lives  for  itself,  nor  is 
allowed  to  live  for  itself.  Nature  executes 
drones.  Until  a  man  has  learned  to  give  and 
to  train  himself  for  giving,  to  work  for  others, 
to  plan  and  study  for  others,  to  live  for  others, 
and  spend  himself  for  others,  and  save  nothing 
for  himself,  nature  exacts  pound  after  pound 
of  flesh  until  only  enough  remains  to  make  a 
fossil.  Men  groan  over  a  tenth.  The  God  of 
nature  exacts  all.  Our  nature  exacts  all.  Use 
it,  or  lose  it.  All  your  learning,  achievement, 
discovery,  your  good  times,  your  blessed  ex- 
periences, have  not  found  the  reason  for  their 
existence  until  you  touch  the  heart  of  humanity. 
Our  hands  may  lose  all  we  give  —  our  hearts 
lose  nothing." 

My  friend  once  told  to  his  students  this 
parable  of  "The  Holy  Shadow."  Whether 
original  with  him  or  not  his  notes  do  not 
tell  us: 

"  Long,  long  ago  there  lived  a  saint  so  good 
that  the  astonished  angels  came  down  from 
heaven  to  see  how  a  mortal  could  be  so  godly. 

[59] 


THE  RELIGION   OF  A 


He  simply  went  about  his  daily  life,  diffusing 
virtue  as  the  star  diffuses  light  and  the  flower 
perfume,  without  even  being  aware  of  it. 
Two  words  summed  up  his  day :  he  gave,  he 
forgave.  Yet  these  words  never  fell  from  his 
lips;  they  were  expressed  in  his  ready  smile, 
in  his  kindness,  forbearance,  and  charity. 

"The  angels  said  to  God,  *O  Lord,  grant 
him  the  gift  of  miracles  1'  God  replied,  'I 
consent ;  ask  him  what  he  wishes/ 

"So  they  said  to  the  saint:  ' Should  you 
like  the  touch  of  your  hands  to  heal  the  sick  ? ' 
*  No/  answered  the  saint ;  '  I  would  rather 
God  should  do  that/  *  Should  you  like  to 
convert  guilty  souls  and  bring  back  wander- 
ing hearts  to  the  right  path  ? '  '  No ;  that  is 
the  mission  of  angels.  I  pray;  I  do  not  con- 
vert/ *  Should  you  like  to  become  a  model 
of  patience,  attracting  men  by  the  lustre  of 
your  virtues  and  thus  glorifying  God  ? '  *  No/ 
replied  the  saint ;  '  if  men  should  be  attached 
to  me,  they  would  become  estranged  from 
God.  The  Lord  has  other  means  of  glorifying 
himself/  'What  do  you  desire  then?'  cried 
the  angels.  '  What  can  I  wish  for  ? '  asked  the 
saint,  smiling.  '  That  God  gives  me  his  grace; 
with  that  shall  I  not  have  everything?' 

"But  the  angels  insisted:  'You  must  ask 

[60] 


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for  a  miracle,  or  one  will  be  forced  upon  you/ 
'Very  well/  said  the  saint;  'that  I  may  do  a 
great  deal  of  good  without  ever  knowing  it ! ' 

"  The  angels  were  greatly  perplexed.  They 
took  council  together  and  resolved  upon  this 
plan.  Every  time  the  saint's  shadow  should 
fall  behind  him  or  at  either  side,  so  that  he 
could  not  see  it,  it  should  have  the  power  to 
cure  disease,  soothe  pain,  and  comfort  sorrow. 

"And  so  it  came  to  pass,  when  the  saint 
walked  along,  his  shadow,  thrown  on  the 
ground  on  either  side  or  behind  him,  made 
arid  paths  green,  caused  withered  plants  to 
bloom,  gave  clear  water  to  dried-up  brooks, 
fresh  color  to  pale  little  children,  and  joy  to 
unhappy  mothers. 

"  But  the  saint  simply  went  about  his  daily 
life,  diffusing  virtue  as  the  star  diffuses  light 
and  the  flower  perfume,  without  even  being 
aware  of  it.  And  the  people,  respecting  his 
humility,  followed  him  silently,  never  speaking 
to  him  about  his  miracles.  Little  by  little, 
they  even  came  to  forget  his  name,  and  called 
him  only  '  The  Holy  Shadow/ ' 

"The  word  of  God  is  life,"  says  Oscar 
Carleton  McCulloch,  a  kindred  spirit  who 
has  in  like  fashion  interpreted  the  religion  of 
action.  "The  word  of  God  is  life.  'I  am 

[61] 


THE  RELIGION   OF  A 


come  that  they  might  have  life,'  says  Jesus, 
*  and  that  they  might  have  it  more  abundantly/ 
Life,  not  salvation.  Salvation  is  a  word  that 
Jesus  never  used.  I  am  come  that  men  may 
live,  may  enjoy  their  life,  may  find  out  what 
powers  are  in  their  hearts  and  what  faculties 
in  their  minds,  what  relation  they  sustain  to 
the  great  power  above,  our  Father;  what  is 
their  business  here,  how  they  may  help  the 
broken,  and  how  they  may  lift  the  fallen.  ' 1 
am  come  that  they  might  have  life,  and  that 
they  might  have  it  more  abundantly/  God 
is  not  here  repairing  and  restoring  things 
alone.  Preventive  medicine  is  rapidly  dis- 
placing remedial  medicine.  Where  of  old 
seventy-two  different  elements  entered  into  that 
which  was  to  give  life  to  those  that  were  sick, 
preventive  medicine  anticipates  the  need  and 
to-day  asks,  How  shall  we  prevent  loss  of  life 
and  keep  men  and  women  from  being  ill  ? 

"  1  take  it  that  the  work  of  law  in  this  world 
is  not  simply  disentangling  the  confusions  of 
men,  not  simply  winning  a  case  for  this  man 
and  punishing  that  man ;  but  it  is  the  endeavor 
to  institute  justice  between  man  and  man,  to 
so  state  the  principles  of  social  order  that  men 
shall  not  quarrel  and  men  shall  not  err.  I 
understand  the  work  of  government  is  no 

[62] 


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longer  simply  to  protect  a  man  while  he 
pushes  his  plane  or  swings  his  scythe  or 
stands  behind  his  counter,  but  to  see  to  it  that 
all  shall  have  the  privileges  of  each ;  to  see  to 
it  that  the  weakest  has  not  only  justice,  but 
opportunity.  Preventive  government  is  to 
take  the  place  of  the  old  protective  govern- 
ment. I  understand  the  great  work  of  reform 
to-day  is  not  simply  to  relieve  those  that  are 
hungry,  is  not  simply  to  confine  those  that 
have  done  wrong,  but  to  heal,  to  help,  to  place 
a  man  on  his  feet  again,  to  anticipate  the  fall- 
ing of  little  children,  and  long  before  they  are 
neglected  to  have  gathered  them  into  some 
home  and  pressed  them  to  some  mother's  or 
father's  bosom,  that  love  may  so  protect  them 
and  may  so  prevent  their  knowledge  of  evil 
that  they  shall  not  go  wrong. 

"  I  understand  God's  business  in  this  world 
is  not  salvation  alone ;  that  is  a  little  part  of  it. 
It  is  not  restoration  alone ;  that  is  but  a  phase 
of  it.  It  is  not  repair ;  that  is  a  small  portion 
of  it.  But  it  is  utilizing  all  the  forces  that  are 
as  yet  unlimited  and  unexhausted,  that  chil- 
dren shall  be  born  to  happy  homes  and  joyful 
parents ;  shall  be  so  surrounded  by  education 
and  by  the  conditions  of  a  happier  and  purer 
society  that  they  shall  not  go  astray,  that  they 

[63] 


THE  RELIGION   OF  A 


shall  not  fall  into  evil,  that  they  shall  have  no 
taint  of  sin  upon  them.  There  shall  be  no  need 
of  their  being  born  twice,  since  God's  first 
birth  is  good  enough  for  all  and  suffices  for 
all,  if  nothing  comes  to  prevent  the  perfect 
development  of  his  plan. 

"  This  is  God's  business  in  the  world.  This 
is  that  on  which  he  works  night  and  day. 
We  sleep,  but  the  forces  of  nature  never  sleep. 
We  dream,  but  there  is  no  dreaming  in  the 
restless,  quiet  energy  of  God.  We  make 
spasmodic  effort  and  put  forth  feverish  power, 
but  all  that  God  works  '  is  effortless  and  calm. 
High  on  his  throne  above,  in  loftiest  ray 
serene,  there,  though  we  know  not  how,  he 
works  his  quiet  will/  *  All  great  work/  says 
Ruskin,  '  is  easily  done.'  One  cannot  conceive 
the  immense  mind  of  Shakespeare  ever  stopping 
to  ask  what  he  shall  say  next.  He  moves,  the 
most  gigantic  of  human  minds,  over  the  world, 
interpreting  the  little  meanness  of  Christopher 
Sly,  penetrating  the  mind  of  lago,  entering 
the  sublime  sorrow  of  Lear,  and  understanding 
the  immense  power  of  Othello. 

"  Here  is  the  conception  of  the  universe  as 
God's  place  of  business,  with  organism  and 
system  and  science;  employment  of  power 
and  engagement  and  adaptation  of  the  littlest 

[64] 


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things  to  the  largest  issues.  This  is  the  work 
in  which  we  have  our  part  and  place.  Each 
of  us  fits  in  somewhere ;  to  us  the  question  of 
place  and  use  is  the  supreme  question.  Why 
are  you  troubled,  says  Jesus,  about  questions 
of  food  and  clothing  and  shelter;  your 
Heavenly  Father  knows  all  about  these  things 
and  has  provided  for  them :  for  you  the 
supreme  question  of  life  is,  Where  is  my  place 
and  what  is  my  work?  Seek  ye  first  place 
and  use  and  all  things  will  be  added/' 

That  is  a  noble  sentence  of  the  litany, 
"Whose  service  is  perfect  freedom."  This 
is  perhaps  the  finest  test  of  religion.  To  do 
the  one  thing  best  worth  doing  from  day 
to  day  is  to  make  constantly  better  things 
possible.  It  is  to  make  us  daily  more  and 
more  free.  It  is  wrong-doing  which  ties  up 
a  man,  doing  each  day  the  second  best,  the 
third  best,  the  worst  possible  thing  for  him 
to  do.  The  man  who  refuses  to  tie  himself 
up  to  small  things  is  always  ready  for  large 
ones.  It  is  truth  which  makes  free.  It  is 
righteousness  that  enlarges  our  borders,  that 
widens  our  coasts. 

As  to  this,  I  heard  my  friend  tell  this  story 
—  a  part  of  his  experience  as  a  naturalist  in 
Mexico : 

[65] 


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"I  stood  one  sunny  day  on  a  coral  reef 
in  the  harbor  of  Vera  Cruz.  The  hazy  blue 
air  was  full  of  sunshine  and  the  healthy 
odors  of  the  sea.  Birds  were  tumbling  about 
overhead  in  the  perfect  abandon  of  strength 
and  room  and  tropical  comfort.  The  white 
rocks  and  blue  sea  were  mixing  in  a  line  of 
fleecy  foam  until  the  coral  seemed  to  flow 
away  on  the  wave  crests.  It  was  a  perfect 
day,  such  as  God  sends  us  often  when  he  lets 
heaven  down  to  rest  on  earth  for  a  little  while. 
At  my  feet  was  a  square  hole  cut  out  of  the 
rock.  Across  it  were  bars  of  iron.  I  put  my 
face  down,  and  when  my  eyes  became  accus- 
tomed to  the  darkness  below,  I  could  see  human 
forms  there,  men  in  chains,  standing  in  water 
ankle  deep,  with  the  ocean  ceaselessly  pound- 
ing overhead,  its  hoarse  laugh  reminding  them 
that  they  would  be  thrown  to  the  sharks  when 
they  were  dead.  I  could  see  their  haggard 
faces  turned  up  toward  the  little  barred  square 
of  light,  which  was  all  of  the  great  free  outside 
world  they  could  see.  Since  that  day  that 
Mexican  prison  has  been  the  background 
against  which  I  have  set  my  ideal  of  freedom. 
Chained  hand  and  foot,  enclosed  by  rocky 
walls,  dependent  upon  their  masters  for  food 
and  drink  and  air  and  life,  these  men  were  slaves. 

[66] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


"And  yet  not  all  slaves  are  in  chains  or 
behind  prison  bars.  Standing  beside  me  in 
the  group  that  looked  into  that  dismal  hole  was 
a  young  American.  He  seemed  free.  He  could 
go  where  he  pleased.  He  could  gratify  his 
appetites  and  desires.  He  was  on  his  way  to 
his  Northern  home,  to  wed  a  pure-hearted  girl 
who  was  waiting  for  him  there.  He  read  me 
from  one  of  her  letters,  and  one  could  see  that 
he  was  her  ideal  of  manhood.  Yet  the  night 
before  he  spent  in  a  Vera  Cruz  brothel.  The 
purity  he  was  taking  home  to  his  betrothed 
was  only  acted.  His  manhood  was  only  on 
the  surface.  The  truth  was  not  in  him.  He 
was  afraid  lest  he  should  seem  to  be  what 
he  was.  He  was  chained  by  his  sins  and 
imprisoned  by  the  wall  of  falsehood  he  had 
built  around  himself  until  he  walked  the 
paths  of  truth  only  in  great  fear  lest  the 
rattle  of  his  secret  chains  would  reveal  his 
captivity. 

"  A  man  is  not  always  free  when  he  seems 
to  do  as  he  pleases.  It  depends  on  what  he 
pleases  to  do.  Nor  are  outward  chains  the 
only  badge  of  slavery.  It  is  true  that  wherever 
Jesus  has  gone  emancipation  has  followed. 
'Imperialism  has  given  way  to  democracy, 
and  slavery  to  free  labor/  Peter  slept  in 

[67] 


THE   RELIGION   OF   A 


prison,  and  an  angel  came  and  set  him  free ; 
but  this  is  not  the  way  the  freemen  of  Jesus 
are  liberated.  No  angel  touches  the  sleeping 
prisoner  that  the  chains  may  drop  from  his 
galled  wrists,  but  a  divine  strength  has  been 
imparted  to  the  bondman  until,  like  Samson, 
he  has  risen  from  his  slumber  and  shaken 
himself,  and  his  withes  have  parted  like  tow 
in  the  flames.  The  reformation  of  Jesus  has 
been  peculiar  in  this :  it  has  reformed  men  by 
making  them  strong  enough  to  reform  them- 
selves. The  angel  came  in  the  night  and 
touched  Peter,  and  his  chains  fell  off  and  he 
was  free.  This  is  the  old  way  of  liberating. 
The  spirit  of  Christ  Jesus  in  Paul  made  him 
victor  over  his  own  baser  nature  and  set  him 
free  from  the  despotism  of  his  own  folly  and 
the  mastership  of  the  Evil  One.  That  is  Jesus* 
way.  His  reformation  is  from  the  inside  out. 
Man  becomes  a  partner  in  the  process/' 

And  therefore  the  sensible  American  is  per- 
suaded that  the  religion  of  Jesus  is  an  adequate 
religion,  that  never  in  the  history  of  the  world 
was  it  more  alive  or  more  potent,  and  that 
every  movement  of  civilization,  from  the  study 
of  the  lilies,  the  care  for  little  children,  the 
healing  of  the  sick,  and  the  casting  out  of 
devils  from  church  and  from  state  has  been 

[68] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


along  lines  laid  down  by  him,  by  the  devotion 
of  men  for  those  things  for  which  he  cared. 

With  all  this  what  shall  we  say  of  immor- 
tality ?  The  idea  of  eternal  life  as  well  as  that 
of  life  unblemished  is  in  the  teachings  of  Jesus. 
It  is  everywhere  taken  for  granted.  Our  friend 
does  not  ask  for  immortality  as  a  debt  due  him 
from  the  Creator.  In  this  good  world  he  has 
had  his  rewards  and  punishments,  each  suffi- 
cient for  the  day  thereof.  He  asks  no  final 
compensation  for  dreary  and  dispiriting  ser- 
vice. He  has  known  no  such  service.  His 
"times  are  in  God's  hands,"  the  same  God 
that  "each  day  instantly  and  constantly  re- 
neweth  the  work  of  creation."  He  is  sure  of 
personal  immortality  if  in  the  economy  of  the 
universe  that  phase  of  eternal  life  for  him  be 
worth  while.  If  immortality  is  not  inevitable, 
it  is  no  part  of  his  religion  to  crave  it  or  to 
demand  it.  He  realizes  the  futility  of  an  ap- 
peal to  Science.  Science  can  have  no  answer 
to  this  question.  Science  is  human  experience 
tested  and  set  in  order.  We  who  are  mortal 
have  had  no  experience  of  immortality  to 
which  any  of  our  mechanical  tests  can  apply. 
I  find  in  my  friend's  notes  no  mention  of 
the  finally  impenitent,  no  speculation  as  to 
the  abode  of  the  wicked,  no  balancing  of 

[69] 


THE   RELIGION   OF   A 


rewards  and  punishments.  To  be  busy  with 
the  Father's  work,  be  the  time  long  or  short, 
that  is  reward  enough ;  and  whether  the  way 
has  been  smooth  or  rough,  that  is  a  minor 
question.  The  more  severe  the  test,  the  greater 
the  strength  which  has  hammered  out  victory. 
As  for  punishment,  failure  carries  its  own. 
To  be  nothing,  to  have  done  nothing,  to  be 
at  one  with  no  force  in  the  universe,  to  have 
helped  no  one,  to  have  loved  no  one,  all  this 
is  the  penalty  of  nonentity,  and  it  needs  no 
added  horrors. 

To  my  friend  ease  is  akin  to  selfishness. 
Rest  is  well  for  him  who  has  earned  it,  but 
only  as  a  prelude  to  more  activity.  He  found 
little  to  interest  him  in  the  remedies  for  ner- 
vous exhaustion  which  consist  in  enforced 
belief  that  all  things  are  alike  unreal,  and  that 
because  nothing  is  real,  disease,  deformation, 
and  sin  are  alike  non-existent.  The  essential 
selfishness  of  the  serenity  cultivated  in  this 
fashion  always  impressed  him.  What  we  need 
for  effective  life  is  more  faith  in  our  environ- 
ment, not  less.  More  faith  in  reality  of  matter 
and  force  and  more  faith  in  the  power  of  the 
human  soul  to  stand  above  it.  We  need  not 
belittle  the  power  of  the  strong  god  Circum- 
stance, but  the  God  we  worship  is  a  stronger 

[70] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


god.  So  long  as  "  I  and  my  Father  are  one," 
so  long  do  I  stand  in  a  majority  with  the 
Universe. 

So  my  friend  found  in  robust  action  in  help- 
ing others  the  remedy  for  exhaustion  of  spirit. 
Futile  emotion,  idle  aspiration,  "  rose  pink  sen- 
timentalism  which  never  was  and  never  can 
be  woven  into  action/'  these  had  no  part  in 
his  religious  philosophy.  Alive,  awake,  ready 
to  act  and  ready  to  help,  this  was  his  measure 
of  a  man.  To  the  weak  and  poor,  the  broken 
and  the  feeble,  action  must  show  its  gentle 
side ;  but  my  friend  had  no  sympathy  with  a 
final  gospel  of  feebleness.  The  distemper  of 
anaemia  he  would  never  accept  as  religion. 

"Whether,"  says  Robert  Louis  Stevenson, 
"  we  look  justly  for  years  of  health  and  vigor, 
or  are  about  to  mount  a  bath  chair  as  a  step 
toward  a  hearse,  there  is  but  one  conclusion 
possible,  that  a  man  should  stop  his  ears  against 
paralyzing  terror  and  run  the  race  that  is  before 
him  with  a  single  mind." 

This  word  is  from  Oscar  McCulloch : 

"  1  tell  you,  when  a  man  comes  to  God  at 
last,  having  stood,  God  must  look  upon  him 
very  much  as  we  look  upon  the  soldiers  that 
came  back  from  the  war,  dusty,  ragged,  worn, 
sunburned,  and  limping  along;  but  they  had 

[71] 


THE  RELIGION   OF  A 


stood.  That  war  seemed  such  a  little  thing  in 
1861,  when  the  call  was  made  and  so  many 
thousands  leaped  forward  to  say,  'Yes;  we 
will  go,'  and  shouted  'On  to  Richmond/ 
and  it  was  thought  to  be  only  a  week's  hur- 
ried work.  But  the  weeks  rolled  out  into 
years  and  years,  and  the  obstructions  came; 
there  were  doubts  and  uncertainties  of  prin- 
ciple as  well  as  of  issue;  there  was  failure 
and  defeat.  All  that,  but  still  they  stood. 
'Having  done  all,  stand/  We  have  to  do  it 
in  life.  Who  knows  the  way  through  life 
from  beginning  to  end?  If  such  there  be, 
some  fortunate  one,  I  cannot  say  that  I  envy 
him,  but  I  know  1  wonder  at  him.  God's 
conquerors  have  not  come  out  of  this  life 
with  burnished  armor  and  floating  plume. 
No ;  with  dented  armor  and  broken  helm  and 
bruised  body  they  have  come.  They  have 
not  heard  the  playing  of  trumpets  and  seen 
the  floating  of  welcoming  banners.  Many 
of  them  have  had  to  die  in  the  dark,  saying : 
'  My  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ? ' 

"1  have  lived  through  these  things.  That 
is  why  I  can  talk  about  them.  There  is  not  a 
footstep  here  that  I  have  not  pressed  with  my 
own  foot,  and  I  dare  say  that  many  who  are 
here  can  say  the  same  thing.  Let  us  under- 

[72] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


stand  it  and  take  it  as  it  is.  With  what  we 
believe  to  be  the  universe  on  our  side,  then 
barrenness  of  nature,  unloveliness  of  sugges- 
tion, bitter  oppositions  of  men,  and  the  cloud- 
ing and  uncertainty  of  the  issue,  count  for 
but  little. 

"  Let  us  stand  in  righteousness  and  truth 
and  peace  with  other  men.  As  is  our  hope, 
so  is  our  belief  that  there  is  a  God  on  whose 
side  we  work  and  who  has  ability  to  help  us ; 
we  believe  there  is  an  expansion  as  well  as  an 
extension  of  life  beyond.  How  proudly  shall 
they  come  in  at  the  last  who  have  fought  the 
good  fight  and  have  finished  their  course  and 
have  kept  their  faith.  Oh,  he  leads  them  by 
ways  that  they  have  not  known." 

The  arguments  of  philosophy  can  have  for 
us  no  finality.  We  have  only  the  certainty  of 
man's  experience,  from  which  no  reasoning 
may  expand.  The  only  philosophy  which  can 
be  trusted  has  its  roots  in  science.  We  know 
no  truth  save  that  which  arises  from  human 
experience,  and  this  truth  is,  at  best,  seen  only 
in  part  as  "  through  a  glass  darkly."  The  out- 
lines in  this  "  dimly  lighted  room  "  of  human 
consciousness  philosophy  endeavors  to  restore. 
She  would  see  the  phenomena  about  us,  not 
with  the  partial  and  subjective  vision  of  man, 

[73] 


THE  RELIGION   OF  A 


but  as  with  the  eye  of  the  Infinite  Being.  She 
would  know  things  as  they  really  are,  but  she 
cannot,  because  only  through  our  imperfect 
senses,  the  basis  of  science,  can  we  know 
objective  things  at  all.  Outside  the  field  of 
knowledge  and  of  reason,  outside  of  science  and 
of  philosophy,  lies  the  belief  in  immortality. 
"Life,  like  a  dome  of  many-colored  glass," 
says  Shelley,  "stains  the  white  radiance  of 
eternity." 

Let  us  listen  to  our  friend  as  he  gives  us 
the  basis  of  his  belief.  "  No  fact  is  actually 
known  unless  it  is  stated  in  mathematical 
terms,  and  with  questions  such  as  this  no 
demonstration  is  possible.  Attempts  to  dem- 
onstrate degrade  the  truth.  Before  you  can 
prove  it,  you  must  first  bring  it  down  out  of 
the  region  where  things  require  no  proof  to 
the  level  of  common  things  that  can  be  proved. 
You  may  know  a  stone  or  a  bit  of  metal ;  you 
will  never  weigh  love. 

"Immortality  is  not  proved  by  Nature. 
Nature  is  full  of  suggestions  and  analogies, 
but  analogies  prove  nothing.  Homologies 
prove.  If  we  can  trace  a  fundamental  iden- 
tity between  any  element  of  our  character 
and  the  nature  of  God,  if  we  can  find  in  the 
beneficent  heart  of  God  a  homology  to  the 

[74] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


heart  of  man,  we  have  commenced  to  build 
the  demonstration  of  the  fact  of  immortality. 

"So  if  1  appear  to  destroy  the  heaven  of 
your  dreams,  let  me  try  to  show  you  that  in 
its  place  may  be  put  a  heaven  which  knows 
no  present  or  future. 

"  If  man  is  ever  to  be  an  immortal  being,  he 
is  such  when  he  begins  to  live  his  divinity. 
If  you  have  risen  to  that  height  where  you 
feel  sure  that  you  know  God  in  this  world 
and  in  your  life  and  in  the  lives  of  your 
fellows,  be  very  sure  that  you  know  your 
own  immortality. 

"How  did  Jesus  view  this  question?  He 
offers  no  proof  of  immortality,  but  simply 
assumes  it.  He  talks  much  about  love,  faith, 
obedience,  prayer.  He  might  have  shown  that 
each  presupposes  immortality,  but  he  did  not. 
Life  was  so  real  to  him  that  the  thought  of  its 
ending  never  occurred  to  him.  He  was  alive, 
and  that  meant  alive  forever.  Death  was  only 
an  incident  connected  with  man's  body,  and 
to  Jesus  man  was  not  a  body,  but  a  soul  — 
using  matter  for  a  while,  but  not  identified 
with  it. 

"  If  his  life  had  been  to  any  extent  identified 
with  matter,  we  might  have  expected  him  to 
fear  death ;  for  we  know  perfectly  that  death 

[75] 


THE  RELIGION   OF  A 


will  separate  us  from  material  things.  But 
he  loved  things  in  men  that  death  could  not 
touch;  and  he  lived  and  worked  with  char- 
acters, not  bodies.  So  he  wasted  no  time  in 
reasoning  about  things  that  are  not  to  be  set- 
tled by  reason.  He  assumed  God,  and  God  is. 
To  demonstrate  immortality  would  have  been 
to  him  irrelevant.  He  was  alive,  forever,  self- 
evident.  He  assumed  it  and  built  his  whole 
teaching  on  that  assumption. 

"  Do  you  say  that  assumption  is  no  proof  ? 
It  is  a  statement  of  conviction.  The  biologist 
is  convinced  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  life ; 
he  assumes  it,  and  works  upon  that  assump- 
tion. So  Jesus  assumes  that  man  is  //^-mortal. 
He  does  not  speak  of  life  hereafter ;  life  is  now 
—  now  and  forever.  Life  and  eternal  life  are 
the  same.  The  important  thing  with  him  was 
not  that  man  might  through  much  suffering 
and  trial  weather  the  storms  of  life  and  then 
have  an  easy  course  through  all  eternity.  The 
vital  point  with  him  was  that  man  should  not 
postpone  his  life  until  after  his  own  funeral, 
but  should  begin  his  eternity  now. 

"  So  he  sought  to  give  meaning  to  life.  Not 
knowledge,  nor  power,  nor  riches,  nor  position, 
but  character.  And  then  life  begins  to  be 
true;  it  announces  itself  as  eternal  to  the 

[76] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


mind.  When  a  man  begins  to  live  —  love, 
deny  himself,  serve  —  he  understands  what 
life  is  and  knows  that  death  cannot  touch  it. 
But  all  these  activities  are  what  may  be  called 
spiritual  activities.  When  the  spiritual  nature 
is  brought  into  exercise,  it  generates  not  only 
faith  in  eternal  life,  but  reasons  for  it. 

"In  proportion  as  man's  life  is  identified 
with  things  that  change  and  decay  is  his  faith 
weakened.  But  if  one's  ideals  are  in  the  realm 
of  character,  death  is  not  one  of  their  attributes. 
Faith  has  a  wonderful  assimilating  power ;  we 
are  like  what  we  believe.  By  this  principle 
Jesus  unites  himself  to  men.  Fellowship 
brings  likeness,  and  likeness  means  that  we 
take  ourselves  his  attitude  toward  life.  What 
was  his  attitude  ?  Love.  To  the  lawyer  who 
tempted  him,  Jesus  answered,  'Thou  shalt 
love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and 
with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  strength, 
and  with  all  thy  mind;  and  thy  neighbour 
as  thyself.  This  do,  and  thou  shalt  live/ 
This  is  another  way  of  saying  that  life  is  love, 
and  love  is  life  eternal.  Only  he  who  loves 
lives.  Wisdom  is  vain  unless  our  knowledge 
is  turned  into  love. 

"  Love  for  men  —  and  this  soon  passes  into 
love  for  God  —  lifts  man  above  the  physical, 

[77] 


THE  RELIGION   OF  A 


where  death  is,  into  the  spiritual  life  ever- 
lasting." 

We  may,  then,  strive  toward  a  religion 
which  shall  be  not  collective  alone,  but  per- 
sonal ;  not  the  religion  of  a  time  or  state,  but 
of  a  man ;  not  one  of  creed  nor  of  ceremony 
nor  of  emotion,  not  primarily  a  religion  of  the 
intellect,  but  a  religion  of  faith  and  cheer, 
of  love  and  action,  of  trust  in  the  realities  of 
nature  and  in  the  reality  of  the  spirit,  a  faith 
that  the  universe  is  in  hands  of  perfect 
wisdom  and  that  in  our  way  we  may  be  at 
one  with  it,  striving  toward  abounding  life 
and  helping  our  brother  organisms  as  we 
meet  them  to  struggle  toward  all  good 
things. 

Dr.  McCulloch  quotes  from  a  Persian  phil- 
osopher :  "  Divinities  of  worship  had  divided 
mankind  into  seventy-two  religions ;  from  all 
their  dogmas  I  select  one  —  divine  love." 
And  the  test  of  love  is  its  impulse  to  action. 
"  Cheerful  and  hopeful  to  do  life's  business." 
If  this  defines  our  religion,  its  truth  will  be 
shown  in  our  works. 

My  friend  ended  an  address  to  his  students 
with  these  words : 

"  Ye  men  of  Stanford,  I  perceive  that  in  all 
things  you  are  somewhat  religious.  But  you 

[78] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


have  reasoned  about  God's  power  and  have 
studied  his  laws  until  you  have  ceased  to  feel 
your  likeness  to  him,  and  have  written  over 
your  altar  the  inscription,  '  To  the  unknown 
God/  And  the  altar  bears  no  sacrifice.  What, 
therefore,  ye  worship  as  agnostics,  declare  I 
unto  you,  the  God  that  made  the  world  and 
all  things  therein,  he  being  Lord  of  heaven 
and  earth,  giveth  to  all  life  and  breath  and  all 
good  things,  and  is  not  far  from  each  one  of 
us.  For  in  him  we  live  and  move  and  have 
our  being.  When  man  loves  and  serves,  it  is 
the  child  endeavoring  to  be  like  its  father. 
When  man  longs  for  greater,  nobler,  truer 
things,  it  is  the  son  recognizing  his  relation 
to  the  Parent. 

"Out  of  your  lives  take  the  love  and 
sympathy,  the  purity,  the  truth,  the  tender 
things,  and  all  that  grows  into  larger  life,  and 
put  these  on  the  cold  altar  of  your  heart ;  then 
cut  out  those  empty,  lonely  words,  'To  an 
unknown  God/  and  write  '  Our  Father/  And 
bow  before  him ;  for  this  is  your  God,  and  he 
will  not  withhold  any  good  thing  from  you  if 
you  walk  uprightly." 

Of  the  many  tributes  to  my  friend's  memory, 
the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  poem,  by  one  of  his 
students,  is  the  most  worthy.  It  is  entitled 

[79] 


THE  RELIGION   OF  A 


PRAYER 
BY  CHARLES  KELLOGG  FIELD 

"Ah  well-a-day,  what  evil  looks 
Had  I  from  old  and  young; 
Instead  of  the  Cross  the  Albatross 
About  my  neck  was  hung;  .  .  . 
I  looked  to  Heaven  and  tried  to  pray, 

But  or  ever  a  prayer  gusbt, 
A  wicked  whisper  came  and  made 
My  heart  as  dry  as  dust." 


There  is  a  season  of  high-hearted  song, 

The  vocal  glory  of  the  greening  spring, 
When  life  stirs  up  through  music,  pulsing  strong 

Toward  the  hushed  wonder  of  its  blossoming ; 
No  meditation  softens  this  clear  tone 

That  rings  with  newly-wakened  consciousness, 
The  tingling  upward  impulse  asks  alone 

Expression,  and  the  song  is  purposeless 
Save  that  perhaps  some  thrill  of  mystery 

Lies  at  the  roots  of  life,  an  unguessed  hour 
Felt  in  the  lifting  leaves,  a  prophecy 

Locked  in  the  promise  of  the  folded  flower. 
As  yet  along  the  stalks  the  tender  green 

That  the  fond  roots  first  ushered  to  the  light 
Remains,  although  an  urgency  unseen 

Compels  division  to  release  the  slight 
Brave  colors  of  the  buds  that  must  have  way ; 

And  where  the  new  leaves  spread  old  leaves  appear, 
Caught  in  the  stalks'  uprising  where  they  lay, — 

Dead  straws  that  linger  from  the  parent  year. 


[80] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


Over  the  hills  the  free  winds  blow, 
The  lithe  stalks  bend  and  the  old  leaves  go, 
And  the  young  plants  shiver  a  little  as  though 
They  miss  the  touch  they  are  wont  to  know, 
And  a  sense,  somehow,  of  loss  and  wrong 
Bears  heavily  at  the  heart  of  song. 


Who  knows  the  number  (I  remember  one) 

To  whose  glad  youth  the  Campus  has  upheld 
Spring's  green-and-silver  mirror  in  the  sun, 

How  many  musings  it  has  paralleled 
When  thought  intruded  on  the  wordless  joy 

The  field -lark  set  to  music ;  I  have  known 
How  in  new  leaves  and  wind-swept  straws  a  boy 

May  see  reflected  his  dear  faith  outgrown. 
For  who  shall  measure  what  minutest  change 

Can  stiffen  stem  and  bud  or  harden  thought 
From  tender  trust  to  question,  and  estrange 

Old  leaf  and  new,  home  and  the  youth  it  taught  ? 
Chance  breeze,  chance  word, — what  grows  that  may 
escape  it? 

Light  breeze  or  wind,  light  word  or  argument, 
Men's  faith  is  as  environment  shall  shape  it, 

Trees  are  but  twigs  continuously  bent. 
Thus  it  has  been  that  simple  faith  in  prayer, 

Entering  these  arcades,  was  blown  away 
By  "  winds  of  freedom  "  taken  unaware 
In  shining  weather,  and  the  mind  swept  bare 

Of  confidence  and  any  will  to  pray. 
So  many  hands  there  are  to  rend 

The  masonry  of  faith  apart ! 

[81] 


— •- 


THE  RELIGION   OF  A 

__ ,          <>^ 


Books  unexplored,  some  rare  new  friend 
Whose  trust  already  has  had  end. 

Who  cannot  find  it  in  his  heart 
To  beg  of  what  he  cannot  see, 

To  dare  inform  Infinity ; 
So  many  hands  destructive,  and  so  few 
To  rear  upon  the  ruined  heap  a  new 
Abiding  comfort !    All  too  long  remain 
The  fragments,  never  wholly  set  again ; 

The  winds  of  doubting  blow  the  dust 

Of  the  old  comfortable  trust 

Whereto  there  stretches  no  return 

Save  only  as  the  mind  may  learn 

Some  satisfaction  to  discern. 

in 

To  such  a  mind  a  voice  may  reach, 
In  class-time  or  some  graver  day, 
Whose  calm  authority  of  speech 
Shall  fill  an  eager  ear  and  teach 
A  troubled  spirit  how  to  pray ; 

A  voice  like  one,  —  this  much  we  know : 
It  sank  in  silence  years  ago 
When  he  was  put  from  sight  and  sound 
Beneath  the  Arboretum  ground, 
Where  sweeps,  as  in  a  long  caress, 
The  pepper-branches'  tenderness,  — 
So  much  we  know,  howe'er  we  guess ! 
Voice  unforgotten !  once  your  message  came, 
Set  in  a  quiet  sentence ;  others  heard 
Doubtless  no  more  than  word  trail  after  word 
Along  the  dry  course  of  the  droning  hour, 
As  in  a  drowsy  shower 

[82] 


SENSIBLE   AMERICAN 


Drop  follows  drop  along  the  window-frame ; 

Yet  one  heart  there  was  stirred 

As  by  its  name 

Called  suddenly  at  night,  a  flame 
Leaped  up  with  power 

Upon  the  instant  to  illume 

Its  path's  impenetrable  gloom. 
Your  words  were  like  the  ocean's  utterance, 

Whose  deep,  illimitable  swell 
Has  waked  a  haunting  assonance 

Within  the  hollow  of  a  shell, 
An  echo  yearning  to  set  free 
Its  understanding  of  the  sea, 
And  able  only  to  impart 
A  hint  of  what  is  in  its  heart. 

IV 

"  Prayer,  if  it  be  such  deep  desire 

For  good  that  it  shall  realize 
Its  hope  in  action,  may  aspire 

To  answer  and  not  otherwise." 
So  spake  the  voice,  and  prayer  became 
A  force,  no  more  an  emptied  name ! 
And  over  faith's  inverted  cup 
A  gleaming  Grail  was  lifted  up. 
No  mere  petition  could  express 
That  inward  prayer  for  righteousness, 
Nor  any  supplicating  word 
Voice  the  diviner  speech  unheard ; 
For  life  itself  was  made  the  only  prayer 

And  life  itself  the  only  answer  gained ; 
Unlimited  the  soul's  expression  there, 

Unlimited  the  heart's  desire  attained ! 

[83] 


RELIGION  OF  A  SENSIBLE  AMERICAN 

The  eager  stem  shall  find  its  hour 
Of  answer  in  the  opened  flower, 
And  the  flower's  rapt  unfolding  lead 
To  rich  fulfilment  in  the  seed ; 
Man's  self-dependent  will  to  be 
In  tune  with  God's  high  harmony, 
Right  thinking  ever  turned  to  act 
Shall  make  unceasing  prayer  a  fact, 
And  prayer,  thus  answered,  shall  allow 
A  larger  faith  and  teach  it  how 
To  find  its  heaven  here  and  now ! 

"  That  selfsame  moment  I  could  pray 

And  from  my  neck  so  free 
The  Albatross  fell  off  and  sank 

Like  lead  into  the  sea." 


[84] 


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